LIBRARY 

University  of  California^ 

IRVINE 


THE  MIDGE 


BY 

H.  C.  BUNNER, 

AUTHOR  OF  "AIRS  FROM  ARCADY  AND  ELSEWHERE. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 
1887 


fS 


COPYRIGHT,    1886,   BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TO 


A.  L.  B. 


THE  MIDGE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

IT  was  quiet  in  the  Brasserie  Pigault.  It  was  a 
snowy  night,  for  one  thing,  the  air  full  of  a 
damp,  heavy  fall  of  broad  white  flakes.  And 
then  there  had  been  a  bad  fire  down  in  Grand 
Street,  and  the  frivolous  and  pleasure-seeking 
portion  of  the  quarter's  population  had  gone 
down  to  see  the  wounded  people  taken  out  of 
the  ruins. 

So  business  was  dull  at  the  Brasserie  Pigault. 
Undeservedly  dull,  for  the  only  stains  on  the 
dim  walls  were  the  stains  of  time  :  the  table-tops 
shone  like  century-polished  mahogany,  the  lusty, 
friendly  fire  glowed  through  the  red  eyes  of  the 
great  stove,  the  sand  on  the  floor  was  crystal- 
bright,  and  bright  were  Madame  Pigault's  black 
eyes,  as  she  sat  knitting  behind  the  desk,  and 
looked  toward  the  window,  where  a  fantail  of 


THE  MIDGE. 


gas-jets  lit  up  alluringly  the  legend  which,  when 
you  once  got  inside,  read  : 


.TJUADiq.l 


C 

,33MIW  3MH 


It  was  only  a  beer-saloon,  of  course  ;  but  there 
was  a  comfort  and  cleanliness  about  it  that  were 
almost  homelike.  And,  just  for  this  dull  hour, 
the  room  was  filled  with  the  charm  of  that  sacred 
yet  sociable  quiet  which  the  male  animal  of  our 
species  loves  to  establish  in  whatever  serves  him 
for  club-room. 

There  were  little  noises,  but  they  were  of  a 
gentle  sort.  From  time  to  time  there  was  the 
joggle  of  falling  coal  in  the  big  stove;  and  then 
Louis,  the  waiter,  set  it  right  with  a  subdued 
rattling.  Sometimes  a  gas-jet  flared  and  wheezed 
and  whistled  until  madame's  knitting-needles 
clicked  on  the  counter,  and  Louis  flew  across 
the  room  just  as  the  vicious  spurt  of  flame  made 
up  its  mind  to  subside.  More  often  than  this,  a 
glass  clinked  against  the  shining  brass  faucet  of  the 


THE  MIDGE.  3 

keg,  and  there  was  a  "  whish  !  "  of  beer,  quickly 
drowned  in  its  own  bubbling  overflow.  And 
almost  regularly  every  ten  minutes,  the  crash  of 
shuffling  dominos  came  from  where  Mr.  Martin 
and  M.  Ovide  Marie,  the  curly-haired  music- 
teacher  from  Amity  Street,  were  playing. 

Just  across  the  room  from  Mr.  Martin  and  M. 
Marie,  at  the  table  under  the  corresponding  gas 
light,  sat  the  Doctor.  His  overcoat,  with  its 
military-looking  cape,  was  thrown  back  over  his 
shoulders,  his  elbows  were  planted  on  the  table, 
and  his  head  was  propped  up  between  the  closed 
fists.  A  good  American  face  it  was,  too,  that 
looked  at  you  over  those  lean,  sinewy,  nervous 
American  knuckles.  A  hatchet-face,  if  you  will, 
but  a  pleasant  face  for  all  that — strong  and  fine, 
with  the  lines  of  good  stock  in  it,  with  force  in 
the  clear  gray  eye  and  humor  in  the  curl  of  the 
mouth.  A  gentle  face — babies  pawed  the  air  to 
get  at  it  as  soon  as  they  saw  it — and  yet,  looking 
at  it,  you  could  quite  understand  that  this  was 
the  same  Captain  Peters  who,  in  1863,  carried 
despatches  straight  through  Quantrell's  lines  to 
that  interesting  arm  of  the  U.  S.  forces  which  at 
that  time  was  fighting  fire  with  fire,  up  and  down 
Missouri. 

Nobody  ever  called  him  Captain  nowadays, 
though.  Between  Broadway  and  the  North  River, 
from  Washington  Square  nearly  to  Canal  Street, 
old  residents  hailed  him  as  "  Doctor,"  and  with 


4  THE  MIDGE. 

the  sensitive  modesty  of  the  genuine  soldier,  he 
accepted  the  civilian  title,  and  said  nothing  about 
his  captaincy  or  his  record.  Besides,  it  was  Fate, 
he  thought,  that  he  should  be  a  doctor  after  some 
fashion.  All  the  Evert  Peterses  for  five  genera 
tions  back  (and  there  the  count  stopped)  had 
been  doctors.  This  last  Evert  Peters  had  had 
no  liking  for  a  physician's  life;  but  no  choice 
had  been  given  him.  When  he  was  old  enough 
to  go  to  medical  college,  to  medical  college  he 
went,  and  there  he  stayed  until  six  weeks  before 
final  examination,  when  his  father  died.  Then 
he  gave  his  books  and  kit  to  his  chum,  went 
back  to  Oneida,  buried  his  father,  took  himself 
to  Troy,  and  set  to  work  studying  civil  engineer 
ing.  Then  the  war  broke  out,  and  he  found 
what  little  he  knew  of  medicine  and  civil-engin 
eering  coming  handy  in  ways  he  never  dreamed 
of.  When  he  came  home  from  the  war,  he 
sought  out  the  quiet  region  where  what  is  now 
the  French  quarter  of  New  York  merges  into 
Greenwich  Village,  and  there  settled  himself  for 
a  week  or  two,  to  look  about  him.  And  then 
Ovide  Bocage,  working  in  the  planing-mill  in 
Prince  street,  got  his  hand  into  the  machin 
ery,  and  would  have  lost  three  fingers  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  timely  surgery  of  the  young 
man  just  home  from  the  war.  And  so  the 
young  man  was  gratefully  called  "  the  Doctor." 
The  "  week  or  two  "  had  become  fourteen  years, 


THE  MIDGE. 


5 


the  pale  brown  hair  of  the  "young  man"  had 
grown  paler  yet  with  streaks  of  gray,  the  great 
city  had  grown  up  and  left  their  quarter  far  down 
town,  but  still  the  people  thereabout  called 
Evert  Peters  "  the  Doctor,"  and  he  occupied  a 
well-established  yet  ill-defined  place  in  the  com 
munity,  something  between  the  physician  and 
the  priest,  a  sort  of  amateur  ally  and  adjunct  of 
two  professions,  accepted  by  both  and  recog 
nized  by  neither ;  but  very  dearly  loved  by  all 
with  whom  he  had  to  do. 

He  knew  what  was  wanted,  sitting  cozily  that 
night  in  the  Brasserie  Pigault,  when  he  heard 
Piero  open  the  door,  put  his  head  in,  and 
shout : 

"  Ohe,  m'sieu'  le  docteur  !  " 

Piero  had  the  singsong  of  the  sea  in  his  cheery 
hail.  He  was  a  Franco-Italian,  and  the  first 
voyage  he  ever  made  was  his  voyage  to  this 
country,  in  1867,  on  the  bark  Mariana  III.  As 
the  rest  of  the  Mariana's  burden  consisted  of 
Cette  wines  and  Portuguese  sailors,  it  must  have 
been  Piero's  personal  virtue  that  saved  her  from 
going  down  in  an  unregrettable  shipwreck. 
Since  his  arrival,  Piero  had  never  left  the  French 
quarter ;  but,  with  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  rings  in 
his  ears  and  a  roll  in  his  walk,  he  contrived  to 
give  a  maritime  flavor  to  his  life ;  and  when  he 
entered  a  room,  as  far  as  he  possibly  could  he 
made  you  feel  that  he  was  just  opening  the  door 


6  THE  MIDGE. 

of  your  cabin  to  smile  on  you  with  his  storm- 
beaten  brown  face  and  report  all  snug  aloft. 

"  What's  the  matter,  Piero  ? "  inquired  the 
Doctor,  with  a  harmless  scowl  bringing  his 
bushy  gray  eyebrows  closer  together. 

"  Ooman  goin'  die,"  Piero  answered,  grinning 
with  all  his  white  teeth :  "  goin'  die  bad,  down 
'Ouston  Strit." 

"  Why  don't  you  go  for  Dr.  Milhaud  ?  It's 
his  business,  you  marine  chissy-cat,"  said  the 
Doctor,  trying  to  be  irritable.  "  How  often  have 
I  got  to  tell  you  that  I  won't  interfere  with  a 
regular  physician  unless  it's  a  case  of  neces 
sity  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  grinned  Piero,  catching  at  the  last 
word :  "  Necess'tairee,  vair  necess'tairee.  She 
goin'  die,  ev-vair-ee  time,  shu'." 

The  Doctor  rose  from  his  table  with  a  little 
sigh  of  discomfort  and  a  glance  at  his  half- 
drunk  glass  of  beer,  and  then  he  resolutely  but 
toned  his  coat. 

"  Where's  Dr.  Milhaud  ?     Down  at  the  fire  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sair.  Down  to  ze  fi-er.  Two  men  burn', 
t'ree  kill',  le  petit  Coquerel  knock'  down  by  en 
gine  ;  guess  lose  leg,"  Piero  explained,  with 
great  cheerfulness.  "  Doct'  Milhaud  got  'em 
boce,  dem  fell's  ouat  bin  burn' — zey  don't  ouant 
go  to  no  hospital." 

"  More  fools  they,"  observed  the  Doctor,  lead 
ing  the  way  to  the  door,  touching  his  hat  as  he 


THE  MIDGE.  j 

passed  Mme.  Pigault.  Piero  cast  a  longing, 
suggestive  eye  at  the  bar,  and  followed  him  out 
where  the  silent  flakes  sifted  down  on  them  out 
of  the  moist  blackness  above. 

"  Who  is  it  now,  Piero  ?  "  inquired  the  Doctor, 
as  he  strode  on,  tall  and  straight,  towering  above 
Piero,  who  rolled  along  as  though  he  had  the 
wh.ole  Spanish  Main  surging  in  his  legs. 

"  Zat  Poland  lady,  wiz  ze  HT  gal.  Her  hos- 
ban'  he  die  two  mont'  ago." 

"  Why,  Piero," — the  Doctor  knit  his  brows 
again, — "  that  woman's  in  the  last  stages  of  con 
sumption,  sure  enough.  Milhaud  told  me  about 
her.  You  don't  want  me  to  go  there ;  you  want 
the  priest." 

"  No,  she  don'  ouant  no  prist,"  and  Piero 
shook  his  head  vigorously :  "  she  sen'  fo' you'' 

"  What's  her  religion  ?  " 

"  Ma  foi,  I  guess  she  don'  got  no  God  nor 
nossin'.  I  say  to  her :  '  I  get  you  prist' — She 
say  :  '  You  get  me  prist ;  prist  bring  my  hosban' 
back,  eh  ?  '  I  say  :  '  No ;  if  you  got  hosban', 
ouat  you  ouant  of  prist  ?  if  you  no  got  you' 
hosban'  no  mo',  zen  you  ouant  prist.  Zat  ouat 
prist  good  fo' — talk  good  ouen  you  ain'  got  ouat 
you  ouant." 

The  Doctor  laughed  softly. 

"  Zen  M'sieu'  Goubaud — she  bo'd  wiz  M'sieu* 
Goubaud,  he  biggin  talkin',  an'  he  say:  'You 
£r-cuse  me,  madame ;  you  die  somevair  else,  I 


8  THE  MIDGE. 

don'  care  ouaire  you  go ;  you  die  he',  in  my 
'ouse,  you  got  go  heaven.  Eef  you  no  have 
prist,  you  have  prodestan' ;  if  you  no  have  pro- 
destan',  you  have  Doct'  Pittair.'  Zen  she  say: 
'  I  take  Doct'  Pittair,'  an'  M'sieu'  Goubaud,  he 
sen'  me  fo'  you." 

It  was  an  old  story  for  the  Doctor.  Many  was 
the  poor  outcast,  afraid  to  face  priest  or  clergy 
man,  who  -  had  consented  to  open  his  sin-laden 
heart  to  the  good-natured  stranger  who  was 
nothing  more  than  a  sympathetic  fellow-sinner. 
This  was  a  sort  of  duty  for  which  the  Doctor 
considered  himself  utterly  unfit;  but  which 
chance  forced  upon  him.  He  went  through  it 
all  with  a  grimly  humorous  hope  that  some 
good,  in  some  unseen  direction,  might  come  of 
it  all.  For  himself,  he  could  find,  as  he  said,  no 
sense  in  it.  "  Far  as  /  can  see,"  he  remarked 
once,  "  I'm  getting  my  system  saturated  with 
the  smell  of  cabbage,  and  helping  a  lot  of  cussed 
scoundrels  to  die  easy,  when  it  would  be  a  sight 
healthier  for  their  eternal  souls  to  take  hold  and 
wrastle  with  their  iniquity,  and  die  with  some 
sort  of  understanding  of  what  their  prospects 
are.  I'm  afraid  some  of  those  fellows  that  I've 
sent  off  so  slick  and  pleasant  wouldn't  thank  me 
for  it  now." 

In  Houston  Street,  the  dampness  and  heavi 
ness,  and  the  lifeless  fall  of  the  snowflakes,  were 
enough  to  depress  the  spirits  of  even  the  chil- 


THE  MIDGE.  9 

dren,  who  had  long  ceased  to  skylark  about  the 
areas  and  basements  and  up  and  down  the  sharp- 
pitched  steps.  Beer  saloons  and  groceries  kept 
the  street  awake  with  patches  of  light ;  but  the 
weight  of  the  dull,  damp  weather  was  over 
everything. 

M.  Goubaud  was  a  dealer  in  feathers,  and  the 
smell  of  his  stock  penetrated  to  the  uttermost 
corner  of  the  rickety  building  in  which  he  kept 
shop  and  stored  lodgers.  But  it  was  lost  among 
a  dozen  other  smells  in  the  close  back  room  to 
which  Piero  led  the  Doctor.  Few  sick-rooms 
are  sweet,  but  in  this  one  there  was  an  element 
of  unusual  offensiveness  in  the  musky  cheap 
perfume  which  rose  from  an  open  trunk  in  one 
corner  where  some  bits  of  gaudy  silk  and  satin 
showed  bright  and  sharp  amid  the  dirt  and  grime 
around  them. 

"Theatrical,  of  course,"  said  the  Doctor  to 
himself.  He  sat  down  by  the  bed  while  Piero 
introduced  him : 

"  Doct'  Pittair  ! "  announced  the  sea-farer,  his 
head  half-way  in  the  door :  "  All  same  prist ! " 
and  he  vanished. 

Emaciated  and  death-stricken,  it  was  beautiful 
still,  the  face  that  lay  pale  against  the  soiled  blue 
ticking  of  the  pillow.  Young,  too,  the  Doctor 
noticed ;  scant  thirty.  A  lovely  creature  she 
must  have  been,  ten  years  before,  when  there  was 
color  in  those  tea-rose  cheeks,  rosy  fire  in  the 


I0  THE  MIDGE. 

pale,  shapely  lips,  life  in  the  tangled  mass  of  dark 
hair  damp  with  death.  Her  great  black  eyes 
opened  as  he  looked  at  her,  and  in  the  first  flash 
it  seemed  as  though  he  saw  her  as  she  must 
have  been.  Then  they  closed  again  wearily; 
they  had  taken  no  notice  of  his  presence. 

Madame  Goubaud,  sallow,  lean  and  unsympa 
thetic,  bent  her  hard  mechanic  face  over  the  sick 
woman,  and  raspingly  appealed  to  her  to  wake 
up  and  say  her  last  words  to  the  good  doctor. 

The  thin  face  moved  on  the  pillow  in  a  pettish 
way,  and  the  eyes  remained  obstinately  closed. 

"  Maman  !  " 

This  came  from  a  child,  a  girl,  a  thin,  small 
reproduction  of  the  dying  woman ;  a  little  dark- 
haired,  dark-eyed  thing,  who  had  slipped  up  in 
front  of  the  visitor,  and  stood,  frowning  anxiously 
as  she  looked  at  the  invalid.  Her  meagre,  nervous 
hands  grasped  a  medicine-bottle  and  a  spoon. 

"  Maman  /  "  she  said  again  with  a  vehement 
severity  of  tone,  while  her  pale  lips  trembled : 
"Maman!  parle  done!  ce  n'est  pas  gentil,  c.a — 
tu  le  sais  bien  !  "  She  turned  to  the  Doctor  in 
explanation  and  dropped  into  an  English  of  her 
own.  The  voice  was  childish ;  but  the  manner, 
the  management  of  emphasis  and  inflection,  were 
absurdly  mature. 

"  It  is  with  a  sick  as  with  a  crazy,  monsieur. 
You  must  treat  them  as  the  children.  It  is  no  use 
to  reason  with  them.  Maman  !  tu  m'ecoutes  ?  " 


THE  MIDGE.  l ! 

The  mother  opened  her  great  eyes  again,  and 
stared  at  the  Doctor,  at  first  vacantly,  then  with 
a  fretful  summoning  of  intelligence. 

"  C'est  M.  Peters,"  said  the  child,  encourag 
ingly.  Her  English  words  she  pronounced  cor 
rectly,  with  perhaps  the  least  faintly  perceptible 
trace  of  a  French  accent.  But  the  French  seemed 
to  slip  more  easily  to  her  tongue. 

The  mother  was  opening  and  closing  her 
feverish  lips,  as  though  to  indicate  that  her  mouth 
was  dry  and  choking.  The  Doctor  noted  in  the 
act  that  little  touch  of  exaggeration  and  appeal 
which  marks  the  undisciplined  invalid.  The  child 
put  a  spoonful  of  water  between  her  mother's  lips 
and  carefully  tilted  it,  standing  patiently,  with  knit 
brows  and  watchful  eyes,  until  it  was  all  drunk. 

"  You  spik  Franch  ?  "  inquired  the  woman, 
hoarsely.  The  Doctor  bowed.  His  French  had 
never  recovered  from  the  accent  he  had  painfully 
learned  at  school ;  but  he  had  been  long  enough 
in  the  French  quarter  to  accustom  his  ear  to  a 
language  that  he  heard  more  frequently  than  his 
own ;  and  he  could  generally  follow  what  was 
said  to  him,  were  it  said  in  anything  short  of  a 
Basque  patois.  It  was  a  rapid  talker  who  could 
force  him  to  help  himself  out  with  an  occasional 
"pah  si  vite!"  or  "  &es£er-c'est-que-qa." 

But  he  had  a  hard  task  this  time.  The  woman's 
story  was  brief,  and  her  speech  was  slow,  but  so 
improbable  seemed  what  she  had  to  say,  so  inco- 


12  THE  MIDGE. 

herent  and  confused  was  her  manner  of  saying  it, 
that  when,  at  the  end,  she  drew  from  under  the 
pillow  and  thrust  at  him  a  loose  handful  of  dirty, 
creased  and  crumpled  letters  and  papers,  the 
Doctor  took  them  mechanically,  while  he  stared 
at  the  stranger  with  puzzled  eyes,  wondering 
whether  she  was  delirious  or  he  was  dazed. 

Her  name  was  Mrs.  Eustace  Talbot.  Her 
husband — her  dead  husband — has  been  a  great 
singer,  though  no  one  knew  an  artist  in  this  ac 
cursed  country.  She  was  going  to  die,  she  knew. 
She  was  only  thirty ;  but  that  was  thirty  years 
too  much,  and  she  was  going  to  die.  It  was 
better  so  ;  there  was  a  good  God,  after  all,  for  he 
sometimes  let  people  die.  When  she  was  dead, 
she  wanted  to  have  her  child  sent  to  England,  to 
her  husband's  people.  Her  uncle,  Sir  Richard 
Talbot,  would  care  for  the  little  one.  He  was 
a  great  man — a  very  rich  man — if  it  was  any 
trouble  to  M.  le  docteur,  he  would  be  well  paid 
for  it.  He  was  a  demon,  Sir  Richard ;  but  at 
least  he  was  not  canaille ;  he  would  take  the  child 
out  of  this  canaille  atmosphere  that  had  killed 
her  poor  father  and  her  poor  mother.  Sir  Rich 
ard  had  a  palace ;  he  would  take  the  child  to  his 
palace ;  she  would  learn  to  forget  her  miserable 
father  and  mother ;  it  was  best ;  she  could  only 
remember  them  as  living  among  canaille — and  so 
— the  papers  would  tell  all  to  M.  le  docteur — so 
let  her  die  in  peace. 


THE  MIDGE.  ^ 

This  was  told  brokenly,  excitement  struggling 
with  weakness.  It  ended  in  a  piteous  and  feeble 
outcry  over  her  sad  case,  over  her  unhappy  life ; 
and  then  she  turned  her  back  on  Dr.  Peters,  with 
a  movement  of  the  shoulders  that  seemed  to  dis 
miss  him  and  the  world  together.  There  was  so 
much  of  the  spoiled  child  in  it,  so  much  of  hys 
terical  affectation  and  exaggeration,  that  if  the 
Doctor  had  not  seen  the  unmistakable  signs  of 
death  in  the  damp  face,  he  would  have  taken  it 
for  an  extreme  case  of  invalid  malingering. 

All  the  while  the  little  girl  stood  by  the  bed 
side,  her  large,  dark,  anxious  eyes  fixed  on  her 
mother.  Their  look  of  distressed  comprehension 
was  painfully  mature ;  but  her  upper  lip  quivered 
in  childish  fashion,  and  her  breast  heaved  with 
big  breaths  that  were  almost  sobs.  She  still  held 
the  spoon,  and  at  each  breath  it  clicked  softly 
against  the  glass  in  her  other  hand.  She  said 
not  a  word,  and  her  gaze  never  once  dropped 
from  the  sick  woman's  face. 

The  Doctor  left  the  bedside  and  sat  down 
under  the  one  meagre  gas-jet  to  glance  over  the 
letters.  He  was  not  ready  to  believe  this  story 
of  rich  and  titled  connections.  But  it  was  true, 
seemingly.  He  slowly  shuffled  over  the  soiled 
papers,  lifting  them  up  to  the  dim  light,  and 
they  bore  out  the  tale.  They  were  mainly  short 
notes  from  Sir  Richard  Talbot,  of  Pollard  Hall, 
Stonehill,  Kent,  to  his  brother  in  Paris.  They 


!4  THE  MIDGE. 

were  of  an  unfriendly  tone,  refusing  or  grudg 
ingly  allowing  repeated  demands  for  money.  But 
they  left  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  Sir  Richard 
Talbot,  and  that  he  had  had  a  scapegrace  brother 
named  Eustace,  and  that  this  Eustace  was  an 
opera-singer. 

He  had  scarcely  run  through  them  when  he 
heard  a  new  sound  from  the  bed,  and  Mme.  Gou- 
baud  bent  quickly  to  look  in  the  changing  face. 
The  Doctor  crossed  the  room,  but  not  before  the 
child  had  thrown  herself  forward  on  the  bed  in 
a  storm  of  tears  and  caressing  cries  and  wild  ap 
peals  to  the  spirit  that  was  slipping  away  in  dumb 
unconsciousness.  She  knew  it ;  she  had  seen 
it  before,  inexorable  death.  There  was  no  hope 
in  her  instinctive  outcry;  she  saw,  with  wide 
staring  eyes,  the  light  sink  out  of  the  face  and 
leave  a  hard,  dull  gray,  a  blank  strangeness ;  and 
she  knew  what  it  meant. 

She  turned  in  quick,  understanding  obedience, 
when  the  Doctor  drew  her  to  him  and  held  her 
face  against  his  breast.  For  a  moment  it  rested 
there  motionless,  and  then  her  sobs  broke  forth, 
and  her  slim  body  shook  and  quivered  in  Dr. 
Peters's  arms.  He  pressed  her  closer,  and  she 
clung  to  him  and  made  no  attempt  to  look  be 
hind  her. 

Madame  Goubaud  peered  sharply  into  the  still 
face,  crossed  herself,  pressed  her  toilworn  thumb 
down  on  the  half-closed  eyelids,  and  then,  much 


THE  MIDGE.  jj 

as  she  might  have  corded  up  a  bundle  of  fea 
thers,  passed  an  old  red  print  handkerchief  under 
the  dead  chin,  and  tied  the  ends  in  a  knot  on 
top  of  the  head. 

Dr.  Peters  lifted  up  the  girl  in  his  arms.  She 
yielded  herself  to  him,  keeping  her  face  away 
from  the  bed  until  she  could  hide  her  eyes  on 
his  shoulder.  He  carried  her  out  of  the  room. 
Alphonsine,  the  homely-faced,  good-natured  ap 
prentice  of  the  house  of  Goubaud,  offered  to 
take  la  pauvre  petite  in  her  own  bed  that  night. 
They  climbed  the  steep  stairs  to  the  little  attic 
room  where  Alphonsine  shivered  of  winter 
nights  until,  under  the  collection  of  rags  that 
served  her  for  a  coverlid,  she  generated  the 
animal  warmth  of  healthful  sleep. 

It  was  a  poor  place  for  the  child,  bleak  and 
bare  and  wind-ridden,  and  the  desperate  poverty 
of  the  tattered  bed-clothes  caught  the  Doctor's 
eye ;  but  he  thought  of  Mme.  Goubaud's  soul 
less,  hard  face  downstairs,  and  he  left  the  little 
one  to  the  comfort  and  protection  of  Alphon- 
sine's  broad  bosom. 


CHAPTER   II. 

THE  snow  had  ceased,  the  wind  had  risen, 
and  the  thermometer  had  fallen,  when  the 
Doctor  set  out  for  his  home.  It  was  late,  too, 
past  twelve,  but  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  the 
little  French  undertaker's  in  Grand  street.  The 
undertaker  was  not  in  bed ;  he  was  "  confec 
tioning"  an  important  commission,  as  he  in 
formed  his  visitor,  and  he  crimped  a  piece  of 
discolored  satin  and  smiled  cheerfully  as  he 
promised,  with  encouraging  redundancy  of  as 
surances,  that  he  would  go  around  in  the  morn 
ing,  and  supply  that  hideously  meagre  attempt 
at  a  funeral  which  just  saves  the  pride  of  the 
poor  from  the  keen  disgrace  of  the  Potter's  Field. 
A  pine  coffin,  a  hearse,  one  hack,  and  a  share  of 
a  grave  in  some  God-forsaken  cemetery  in  New 
Jersey — you  can  have  all  these  for  twenty  dol 
lars. 

And,  that  being  settled,  Dr.  Peters  went  on  to 
Washington  Square,  on  the  dark  south  side  of 
which  he  found  one  late  light  glimmering  in  a 
high  window.  The  house  in  which  it  shone 
stood  a  little  back  from  the  street,  and  looked 
16 


THE  MIDGE.  iy 

even  darker  and  gloomier  than  those  about  it. 
The  one  pale  light  did  not  give  an  idea  of  home ; 
there  was  nothing  of  expectant  welcome  about 
it;  it  rather  suggested  a  weary  and  uncanny 
wakefulness,  and  made  the  Doctor  feel  that  he 
ought  to  have  been  in  bed  hours  before. 

He  let  himself  in  with  a  great  old-fashioned 
brass  key,  and  toiled  up  the  silent  stairs,  passing 
out  of  the  region  of  perpetual  cabbage  only 
when  he  reached  the  third  story. 

He  opened  the  door  of  his  own  private  domain 
with  some  apprehension ;  but  he  found  a  bit  of 
fire  still  in  the  grate — a  fire  of  anthracite,  clink- 
ery,  gassy,  and  dull,  yet  capable  of  revivification, 
and  after  a  temporary  eclipse  under  the  blower, 
it  brightened  up  and  gave  forth  warmth  after  its 
kind. 

The  Doctor  got  into  his  slippers  and  his  old 
"  house-coat,"  while  the  fire  was  rekindling,  and, 
late  as  it  was,  he  lit  his  pipe  and  sat  down  with 
his  soles  close  to  the  grate,  to  look  over  the 
papers  in  his  pocket,  for  in  addition  to  those  he 
had  received  from  Mrs.  Talbot,  M.  Goubaud  had 
seen  fit  to  entrust  to  him  a  bundle  of  scrap- 
books,  letters  and  odd  documents  found  in  the 
trunk  with  the  theatrical  raiment. 

In  the  hour  that  he  sat  before  the  fire,  he  got 
at  no  more  than  the  bare  outlines  of  a  story  that 
in  after  years  he  was  able  to  round  out  and  fill 
up ;  but  he  had  enough  knowledge  of  the  weak 


!8  THE  MIDGE. 

side  of  human  nature  to  form  in  that  brief 
glance  a  judgment  which  better  knowledge  only 
confirmed. 

He  found  out  that  Eustace  Reginald  Hunt  Hunt 
Talbot  was  the  son  of  Sir  Hugh  Talbot,  vaguely 
described  in  various  clippings  from  French 
papers  as  "  un  nobleman  anglais."  His  mother 
was  a  Frenchwoman,  the  daughter  of  a  rich 
banker,  Cesar  Galifet.  He  had  an  uncle  Antoine 
Galifet,  a  Gascon,  supposed  to  be  a  man  of  vast 
wealth.  Uncle  Antoine  desired  that  his  nephew 
Eustace  should  be  brought  up  in  France,  and  it 
appeared  that  the  Talbot  family  was  very  willing 
to  oblige  Uncle  Antoine.  There  was  reason, 
indeed,  to  believe  that  they  were  glad  to  get  rid 
of  Eustace,  and  that  Eustace  had  given  them 
cause  for  such  gladness.  He  was  sent  to  France 
at  twelve  years  of  age,  put  through  pension  and 
college,  and  turned  loose  in  Paris  ten  years  after 
he  left  England.  Uncle  Antoine  had  probably 
had  some  little  schemes  of  his  own  for  shaping  the 
future  of  his  nephew;  but,  whatever  they  may 
have  been,  they  came  to  naught  From  1852 
to  1862,  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot,  whom  his  French 
friends,  by  some  Gallic  association  of  ideas, 
called  M.  le  vicomte  de  Talbot,  was  a  man- 
about-town  in  Paris.  He  had  an  allowance  from 
Uncle  Antoine,  just  large  enough  to  make  him 
wish  that  it  was  larger,  and  when  he  was  very 
deeply  in  debt  he  applied  to  his  father  in  Eng- 


THE  MIDGE.  jg 

land,  who  generally  sent  him  half  the  money  he 
asked  for,  and  just  twice  as  much  advice  as  he 
had  use  for.  There  was  nothing  to  show  that 
he  had  much  to  do  wifh  the  "  serious  "  society 
of  Paris ;  he  was  a  club  man,  a  little  of  a  rake, 
a  little  of  a  gambler,  a  handsome,  amiable,  su 
perficially  clever,  and  fairly  accomplished  young 
buck.  He  found  his  associates  among  the  fast 
young  Frenchmen  who  were  in  the  theatre-lob 
bies  when  they  were  not  in  the  theatre  dressing- 
rooms,  and  among  that  interesting  class  of  aris 
tocratic  Englishmen  who  occasionally  found  it 
convenient  to  pass  a  few  months  in  Paris,  wait 
ing  for  something  or  other  to  "  blow  over."  He 
was  a  good  shot,  a  fair  fencer,  and  an  amateur 
singer  —  a  tenor  —  of  some  repute.  Various 
"  Chronicles  of  the  Day  "  spoke  of  him  as  "  le 
Mario  du  Cercle  Anglais."  There  were  two 
or  three  silvery,  rouged  daguerreotypes  of  him, 
taken  about  this  time,  and  they  showed  him  as 
with  a  black  moustache  and  black  whiskers — a 
sort  of  modified  Newgate  Collar — much  black, 
curly  hair,  a  swelling  chest  and  a  flashing  eye, 
and  most  marvelous  waistcoats.  He  was  doubt 
less  a  handsome  man,  in  a  consciously  Byronic 
way. 

Somewhere  about  1857  Uncle  Antoine  died, 
and  his  vast  wealth  turned  out  to  be  a  modest 
patrimony,  to  which  he  had  added  not  one  sou, 
in  the  course  of  a  long,  frugal  and  industrious 


20  THE  MIDGE. 

life  as  a  gentleman-farmer.  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot, 
who  had  grumbled  at  his  allowance,  grumbled 
still  more  when  he  received  his  inheritance,  and 
showed  his  contempt  for  the  pitiful  sum  by  spend 
ing  it  all  in  four  or  five  years.  In  1862  he  found 
himself  stranded.  His  father  was  dead,  and  his 
brother  Richard  was  now  the  head  of  the  house. 
And  Brother  Richard,  when  applied  to  for  ready 
money,  honored  the  draft  with  even  more  advice 
and  even  less  money  than  had  seemed  proper  to 
his  excellent  father.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  Mr. 
Eustace  Talbot,  being  thirty-four,  somewhat  faded 
as  a  buck  and  as  a  social  success  in  the  Paris 
clubs,  having  many  debts  and  no  more  credit, 
and  being  possessed  still  of  a  reasonably  pleasing 
face  and  figure,  and  a  nice  little  voix  de  salon, 
well  cultivated,  went  on  the  stage,  and  made 
a  successful  first  appearance  at  the  Italiens, 
singing  a  small  part  in  Mario's  company. 

Hereabouts  in  the  story  the  documentary 
material  became  voluminous,  while  the  solid 
information  to  be  derived  therefrom  grew  dis 
proportionately  meagre.  There  were  dozens  of 
newspaper  paragraphs,  polite  criticisms  and  un 
disguised  puffs,  so  worded  as  to  feed  the  vanity 
of  the  man  at  and  of  whom  they  were  written, 
and  to  show  to  the  cold  and  unprejudiced  reader 
that  the  poor  devil  had  made  a  second-class, 
second-rate  success  of  the  moment. 

Then,  in  1865,  before  the  success,  such  as  it 


THE  MIDGE.  21 

was,  had  quite  faded  away,  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot 
married  Mile.  Lodoiska  Leczynska.  There  was 
little  to  be  learned  about  Mile.  Leczynska.  The 
Doctor,  who  had  seen  Mrs.  Talbot  die  an  hour 
before,  could  readily  believe  what  the  Petit  Figaro 
said  of  her  in  1865 — that  she  was  seventeen  years 
of  age,  ravishingly  beautiful,  svelte  and  brune,  and 
that  she  belonged  to  an  aristocratic  family  of 
Poland.  But  that  was  all  that  the  Doctor  was 
destined  to  know  of  her  origin — all,  perhaps,  that 
she  herself  knew.  Talbot  had  found  her,  a  mere 
child,  in  some  little  foreign  colony  quartered  in 
Bohemian  Paris — a  respectable,  decent,  poverty- 
stricken,  artistic,  pretentious  little  set  of  people — 
there  was  enough  in  the  notices  of  the  wedding 
to  show  that  much — and  he  had  married  her  out 
of  hand.  It  was  a  love-match,  pure  and  simple, 
and  the  love,  at  least,  lasted :  not  in  its  first  flush 
of  ideal  beauty,  perhaps;  but  it  lasted. 

Sir  Richard,  in  England,  stormed.  He  thought 
his  brother  had  disgraced  the  family  name  when 
he  took  to  the  stage;  but  this  marriage  was  some 
thing  not  to  be  forgiven.  His  wounded  pride 
led  him  to  button  his  pocket  all  the  closer. 

Then  the  hard  times  came  to  the  Eustace  Tal- 
bots.  For  the  first  year  they  found  life  a  merry 
game  enough.  They  were  poor;  but  it  was  with 
the  picturesque,  easy-going  poverty  of  Bohemia. 
Their  hardships  were  picnicking  hardships,  and 
they  rather  enjoyed  roughing  it.  Talbot  pro- 


22  THE  MIDGE. 

cured  engagements  to  sing  in  the  Provinces,  and 
he  had  an  Englishman's  faculty  for  getting  credit, 
and  so  they  went  merrily  through  the  twelve 
month.  But  at  the  end  of  it  the  baby  was  born 
— they  christened  her  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt 
Hunt  Talbot,  and  she  weighed  seven  pounds 
when  she  went  to  the  font — and  after  that  it  was 
poverty  out  and  out,  bare,  hard,  shabby,  de 
grading,  worrying,  toilsome,  troubled,  ugly  pov 
erty.  The  provinces  had  grown  tired  of  M.  le 
vicomte  de  Talbot,  with  his  swelling  chest  and 
his  voix  de  salon  and  his  handsome  dandy  face, 
with  the  crow's-feet  around  the  corners  of  his 
eyes.  Paris  laughed  at  him  when  he  tried  to  get 
back  into  grand  opera;  and  when  he  got  down 
to  singing  in  vaudeville  at  the  "  Folies  Sylphides," 
Paris  absolutely  refused  to  laugh  at  him,  and 
voted  him  a  bore. 

And  so,  at  last,  they  had  to  go  on  the  road  in 
frank  vagabondage,  and  they  wandered  hither  and 
thither,  all  over  Europe,  going  anywhere  where 
anybody  would  pay  for  the  well-meant  labors  of 
a  gentlemanly  amateur  who  had  once  sung  with 
Mario  at  the  Salle  Ventadour,  and  who  would 
now  give  you  "  la  Pipe  de  Mon  Oncle  "  or  "  Mari- 
ette,  Mariette,  Ousque  la  crevette?"  and  other 
pleasing  ballads  of  the  day,  at  five  francs  a  ballad. 
Spas,  baths,  gambling-places,  seaside  towns,  they 
tried  them  all,  and  their  beggarly  pilgrimage  took 
them  north,  south,  east  and  west.  And  all  the 


THE  MIDGE.  2$ 

time  the  little  voix  de  salon  grew  thinner  and 
reedier,  the  crow's-feet  sank  deeper,  the  marvelous 
waistcoats  grew  shabbier  and  duller. 

The  seven-pound  baby  was  growing  up  and 
going  through  the  education  of  Bohemia.  The 
wife  was  sickly,  helpless,  loving,  faithful,  Aid  for 
ever  complaining.  Talbot  carried  his  shabby 
gentility  with  a  swagger,  gambled  a  little,  drank 
a  little,  sometimes  made  his  wife  more  or  less 
jealous,  and  never  forgot — or  said  he  never  for 
got — that  he  was  an  artist,  an  English  gentleman, 
and  one  whom  the  world  had  used  most  vilely. 

They  were  a  happy  family,  too.  They  were 
all  satisfied  with  themselves,  and  rich  in  com 
placent  self-conceit,  and  they  hung  together 
loyally.  True,  Mr.  Eustace  Talbot's  vanity  oc 
casionally  marred  the  harmony;  but  only  to 
bring  about  a  completer  unison,  for  his  wife 
extracted  a  certain  proud  satisfaction  from  any 
testimony  to  the  charms  of  the  husband  whom 
she  had  learned  to  worship  as  a  demigod  when 
she  was  a  school-girl  and  he  was  a  dashing 
young  buck  of  thirty-seven.  He  must  have  had 
crow's-feet  then ;  he  certainly  had  them  now ; 
but  she  had  never  seen  them. 

It  did  not  require  much  imagination  to  picture 
the  life  they  led — slipshod,  needy,  happy-go- 
lucky  ;  pretentious  at  its  very  slovenliest ;  full 
of  disappointments,  humiliations  and  embarrass 
ments.  And  through  it  all,  in  cheap  lodging- 


24  THE  MIDGE. 

houses  and  cheaper  hotels,  vulgarized  by  the 
enforced  familiarities  of  poverty,  much  tried, 
often  disillusioned,  love  sat  down  and  rose  up 
with  them,  and  sweetened  their  bitter  bread. 

America  was  the  end  of  it.  Europe  was  ex 
hausted  after  ten  or  eleven  years  of  assiduous 
debt-sowing,  and  they  turned  to  the  land  of 
gold  and  barbarians,  where  artists  and  gentlemen 
must  certainly  be  at  a  premium.  Sir  Richard 
was  called  upon  for  help — positively  for  the  last 
time — and  he  doled  out  fifty  pounds  for  the  privi 
lege  of  having  three  thousand  miles  between 
himself  and  his  brother. 

They  were  not  long  in  finding  out  that  America 
is  no  place  for  an  artist.  After  many  rebuffs, 
the  thin  voix  de  salon  piped  its  last — given  a 
chance  out  of  pure  charity — in  a  wretched  Bow 
ery  theatre,  where  the  gallery -boys  "  guyed  "  it 
with  cruel  applause.  And  in  the  very  first  of 
the  winter  a  young  clerk  at  Bellevue  Hospital 
grinned  as  he  wrote  down  in  his  report  to  the 
Bureau  of  Vital  Statistics  the  elaborate  name  of 
Eustace  Reginald  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot,  dead  of 
typhoid  fever. 

The  rest  Dr.  Peters  knew,  of  his  own  personal 
knowledge  —  except  that  he  never  knew,  nor 
cared  to  know  by  what  hideous  shifts  and  de 
vices  the  few  dollars  left  out  of  Sir  Richard's 
fifty  pounds  had  carried  mother  and  child  over 
the  three  months  since  the  father  had  fallen  sick. 


THE  MIDGE.  2$ 

The  Doctor's  fire  was  out.  He  kicked  it,  and 
brought  down  a  shower  of  white  ashes  and  grey 
cinders.  He  rose,  and,  gathering  up  the  papers 
with  a  long-drawn  whistle  that  ended  in  a  sigh, 
he  put  them  in  his  desk  ;  and  as  he  did  so  he 
said  aloud — he  had  the  .old  bachelor's  habit  of 
brief  soliloquy — "  Queer  world,  by  jingo — pow 
erful  queer  world ! " 

Then,  as  had  been  his  habit  every  night  for 
thirteen  years,  he  stalked  into  the  work-room 
that  lay  behind  his  "  living-room,"  and  looked  at 
the  accumulation  of  wrought  metal  that  repre 
sented  his  work  since  1865,  when  he  set  out  to 
invent  the  ideal  cannon.  He  laid  a  caressing 
hand  upon  the  latest  of  his  models,  and  looked 
at  it  for  a  moment,  knitting  his  brows,  as  though 
he  thought  that  perhaps  the  secret  of  success 
might  be  revealed  to  him  in  that  glance.  It  was 
not,  and  he  turned  away,  with  a  grim  half-smile, 
and  crossed  the  living-room  again  to  the  little 
hall-bedroom  where  his  bachelor  couch,  virginal 
white,  awaited  him. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  Doctor  awoke  the  next  morning  with  a 
special  sense  of  duty  to  be  performed.  His 
days  were  monotonous  enough  to  make  this  feel 
ing  somewhat  of  a  pleasant  surprise.  The  day, 
indeed,  generally  brought  its  duty  of  charity  or 
benevolence ;  but  it  mostly  took  the  form  of  a 
casual  call  upon  his  sympathy,  the  precise  nature 
of  which  he  could  not  foresee.  And,  as  a  rule, 
he  had  to  minister  only  to  accidental  and  tem 
porary  needs.  As  he  himself  put  it,  it  was  some 
body  everlastingly  breaking  legs  at  odd  times. 

But  this  time  he  felt  that  he  had  a  case  on  his 
hands.  He  had  had  no  chance  to  accept  or  refuse 
the  trust  Mrs.  Talbot  had  sought  to  impose  upon 
him.  Death  had  settled  that  matter.  To  shirk 
the  obligation  now  would  be,  he  thought,  to  take 
an  unfair  advantage  of  the  dead  woman.  Lodo- 
iska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot  was  to  be  handed 
over  to  her  uncle  in  England,  and  he  was  to  do 
it.  He  made  no  more  question  of  that  than  he 
would  have  made  fifteen  years  before  had  the 
work  been  allotted  to  him  by  order  of  his 
superior  officer. 
26 


THE  MIDGE.  2J 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  get  an  appro 
priation  from  the  French  Benevolent  Society,  for 
the  burying  of  the  mother  and  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  child  until  such  time  as  Sir  Richard 
Talbot  should  take  charge  of  her.  Old  Luise, 
who  "  did  for"  him,  brought  the  Doctor's  break 
fast — a  scanty  and  uninviting  meal  of  fried  eggs 
and  baker's  bread — at  half-past  seven;  and  at 
eight  he  was  at  the  rooms  of  the  Benevolent 
Society,  and  the  chirrupy,  bald-headed  little 
Secretary  was  inquiring  what  he  could  do  for  his 
"  good  fran'  Pittairss." 

His  good  friend  Peters  had  been  on  similar 
errands  many  a  time  before,  and  went  about  the 
business  with  good-humored  patience.  The 
Secretary  lifted  his  shoulders  and  raised  his  eye 
brows  and  threw  up  his  hands  with  little  gestures 
of  deprecation,  and  cast  a  faint  shade  of  polite 
doubt  on  each  separate  statement,  while  the 
Doctor  told  his  story  and  made  his  requests.  It 
looked  very  discouraging;  but  it  meant  nothing; 
it  was  all  a  matter  of  form.  And  after  a  proper 
time  the  Secretary  expressed  himself  satisfied 
that,  in  spite  of  her  name  (for  the  father  had 
always  sung  as  "  Eustace  Talbot  "),  the  orphan 
waif  was  a  genuine  child  of  France,  and,  as  such, 
entitled  to  relief  at  the  hands  of  the  Society. 
That  it  was  the  Society's  duty  to  bury  the  mother 
he  was  not  so  clear.  He  wanted  to  compromise 
the  matter. 


28  THE  MIDGE. 

"  Doctor  Pittairss,"  he  said,  with  a  humorous 
grimace  of  hopeless  persuasion :  "  You  ar-r-r 
reech — we  'av  moch  to  do — manny  sings  to  at- 
ten'  to — w'y  you  don't  help  us — eh  ?  You  give 
'alf,  eh?" 

"  Not  much,"  the  Doctor  placidly  replied : 
"  this  is  none  of  my  funeral,  Peloubet." 

"  All  a-'ight,"  chirruped  the  little  Secretary : 
"se  more  you  Ammery-can  millionaires  you  'ave 
monnee,  se  more  you  ar-r-r  stingy,  an'  se  more 
you  talk  slangue.  Vair'  well."  His  tone  changed, 
and  he  laid  a  friendly  hand  on  the  Doctor's 
shoulder :  "  Eet  is  all  a-'ight,  my  fran'.  I  sink 
sair  will  be  no  trobble.  We  bary  se  mosser,  I 
sink.  I  let  you  know,  anny  'ow.  Catholique, 
eh?" 

"  No,"  said  the  Doctor,  speaking  promptly  out 
of  his  profound  ignorance :  "  Protestant." 

The  Secretary's  face  fell.  This  statement 
seemed  to  open  the  question  of  nationality  once 
more — that  is,  he  tried  to  look  as  though  he 
thought  it  did.  But  this  was  again  only  a  matter 
of  form.  The  Secretary  knew  Dr.  Peters  well, 
and  he  had  handled  Dr.  Peters's  money,  and  the 
success  of  the  application  had  been  a  foregone 
conclusion.  He  wore  a  doubtful  frown  as  he 
saw  the  Doctor  to  the  door ;  but  within  an  hour 
he  had  put  the  Benevolent  machinery  in  motion, 
and  it  was  settled  that  the  expenses  of  Mrs.  Tal- 
bot's  funeral  were  to  be  met  by  the  Society,  and 


THE  MIDGE. 


29 


that  the  child's  board  was  to  be  paid  at  Mme. 
Goubaud's  for  three  weeks  at  least,  by  which 
time  Sir  Richard  might  be  heard  from.  Dr. 
Peters  was  to  attend  to  that  part  of  the  business, 
they  had  agreed.  It  was  the  Doctor's  own 
proposition.  He  felt  that  there  was  no  necessity 
for  further  exposure  of  the  skeletons  in  the  Tal- 
bot's  family  closet. 

The  cold  clearing  up  of  the  night  before  had 
given  way  to  a  day  of  broken  weather — pale 
sunshine  and  sharp  snow-flurries.  The  dry  little 
crystals  tickled  the  Doctor's  face  as  he  strode 
across  Washington  Square  to  find  the  Reverend 
Theodore  Beatty  Pratt,  who  was  the  clergyman 
in  charge  of  the  Mission  Chapel  of  the  Church 
of  St.  Gregorius. 

He  did  not  feel  quite  easy  in  his  mind  about 
getting  Pratt  to  perform  the  funeral  service,  al 
though  it  seemed  to  be,  on  the  whole,  the  best 
thing  to  do.  He  had  a  tender  conscience,  and  it 
hurt  him  to  think  that  perhaps,  in  spite  of  her 
petulant  cynicism,  the  dead  woman  had  been  a 
Catholic  at  heart,  and  that  she  might  have  re 
sented  the  idea  of  being  laid  to  rest  with  alien 
rites.  But  then  he  did  not  wish  to  go  to  Father 
Dube.  Dube  was  worth  a  dozen  of  Pratt;  but 
Dube  had  his  peculiarities.  He  was  a  hard- 
worked,  conscientious  priest,  much  wearied  in 
spirit,  and  in  his  two  hundred  pounds  of  flesh, 
by  the  endless  needs  of  his  ever-straggling  flock, 


20  THE  MIDGE. 

and  he  drew  the  line  of  indulgence  at  impenitent 
death.  It  was  enough,  he  thought,  for  people  to 
neglect  religion  and  morality  and  soap-and-water 
all  their  lives ;  when  they  came  to  die,  the  least 
they  could  do  was  to  die  in  the  church,  and  give 
their  poor  old  pastor  a  chance  to  do  something  for 
their  immortal  souls  at  the  one  time  when  they 
couldn't  possibly  undo  it  themselves. 

This  was  Father  Dube's  idea,  although  he 
never  formulated  it  exactly  in  this  way.  And 
so  Dr.  Peters  felt  a  little  delicacy  about  calling 
upon  him  to  say  mass  for  the  stranger  who  had 
gone  out  of  the  world  in  a  distinctly  irreligious 
frame  of  mind.  And  Pratt  would  do  just  as 
well.  It  would  never  occur  to  Pratt  to  inquire 
whether  or  no  the  departed  sister  over  whom 
he  was  to  read  the  service  had  really  been  a 
good  Church-of-England  woman.  He  lived  in 
a  state  of  mild  surprise  at  the  fact  that  there 
actually  were  people  in  this  world  who  did  not 
belong  to  the  Church  of  England.  If  Dr.  Peters 
asked  him  to  read  the  service  for  the  burial  of 
the  dead,  he  would  read  it,  as  a  matter  of  course. 
He  talked  to  the  Doctor,  whenever  they  met, 
about  abstruse  points  of  ecclesiastical  law  and 
custom,  and  he  did  his  duty  in  the  parish,  and 
went  away,  afterward,  when  he  was  called  to 
other  fields  of  labor,  without  once  dreaming 
that  Peters  had  never  understood  the  first  word 
of  his  deliverances. 


THE  MIDGE.  3  r 

Dr.  Peters's  religious  views  had  the  haziness  of 
extreme  catholicity.  In  his  childhood,  when 
his  parents  were  pillars  of  the  Episcopal  church 
in  their  little  village  in  Oneida  county,  he  had 
been  brought  up  to  look  upon  a  Romanist  as 
something  nearly  as  bad  as  a  Jew,  in  a  different 
way,  and  not  very  far  removed  in  guilt  from  the 
heathen.  Later  life,  and  much  experience  of 
sore-tried  humanity,  had  taught  him  a  lesson 
of  wider  charity.  He  had  grown  to  think  better 
of  all  creeds — and  less  of  any  particular  one. 
Now,  he  was  Father  Dube's  friend,  and  the  friend 
of  the  Reverend  Theodore  Beatty  Pratt,  and  the 
friend  of  Brother  Strong,  of  the  Bethel.  And 
he  liked  the  Roman  Catholic  priest  best  of  the 
three. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt,  seated  in  his  study 
at  a  very  big  desk,  stroked  his  thin  brown  whis 
kers  and  rubbed  his  prominent  nose,  as  he  dubi 
ously  assented  to  Dr.  Peters's  proposition  that 
the  woman  should  be  buried  that  day.  He  had 
never  quite  reconciled  himself,  he  said,  to  the 
almost  indecent  haste  so  frequently  practiced  in 
the  inhumation  of  the  dead  among  the  poorer 
classes.  He  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  call  it 
irreligious ;  but  it  certainly  was  repugnant  to 
proper  feeling. 

"  Well,  you  see,  Mr.  Pratt,"  said  the  Doctor, 
taking  him  patiently,  as  he  had  taken  the  Secre 
tary  of  the  Benevolent  Society,  "  it  can't  very 


32  THE  MIDGE. 

well  be  helped.  We  can't  ask  those  Goubaud 
people  to  keep  the  body  of  a  strange  woman 
there.  They  are  poor,  you  know,  and  they've 
had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  with  the  family  al 
ready.  And  then  they're  Catholics." 

"  Ah,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Pratt. 

"  And  there's  the  child.  It'll  be  better  for  her 
to  get  it  all  over  at  once,  don't  you  think  so  ? 
Remember  Biedermann's  little  girl,  who  stole 
down  in  the  night  and  sat  by  her  father's  coffin, 
and  went  out  of  her  head  ?  She  has  n't  been 
right  since." 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  vaguely  remembered 
the  occurrence.  The  Biedermann's  were  of 
Father  Dube's  flock. 

"  There's  no  doubt  about  it,"  he  observed : 
"  those  unfortunate  people  "  (he  meant  the  Cath 
olics)  "  go  to  the  other  extreme,  and  postpone 
the  last  offices  in  a  very  unwise  way." 

"  It's  hard  on  the  children,"  the  Doctor  went 
on ;  "  and  then,  you  know,  it  isn't  as  if  we  meant 
to  show  any  disrespect.  You  know  how  it  is 
among  the  poor,  Mr.  Pratt." 

"  Indeed  I  do  ;  indeed  I  do,"  said  Mr.  Pratt, 
promptly.  He  smiled  complacently. 

"Well,  I'll  be  there  at  four  o'clock,  Dr. 
Peters.  I'm  sure  people  ought  to  be  very 
grateful  to  you — taking  all  this  trouble  about 
things.  It's  my  duty,  of  course — it's  the  field 
in  which  I  expect — and  hope — to  be  of  service. 


THE  MIDGE. 


33 


But  I'm  sure  it  shows  a  very  humane  spirit  in 
you,  Dr.  Peters,  it  does  indeed." 

***** 

The  little  undertaker  had  to  receive  his  final 
directions,  and  then  the  Doctor  took  his  noon 
day  sandwich  and  glass  of  beer  at  the  Brasserie 
Pigault,  and  went  home  to  write  a  laborious 
letter  to  Sir  Richard  Talbot.  This  task  took 
much  time,  for  Dr.  Peters  had  the  true  American 
sensitiveness  about  risking  a  possible  snub.  He 
would  have  chatted  with  the  first  tramp  he  met 
on  a  country  road ;  but  he  did  not  like  to  intro 
duce  himself  to  an  English  baronet,  even  to  do 
the  baronet  a  favor.  Moreover,  he  had  to  make 
it  very  clear  to  this  aristocratic  stranger  that 
he,  Peters,  was  a  disinterested  agent  in  the 
business. 

"  Can't  tell  anything  about  Englishmen,"  he 
reflected ;  "  he  might  want  to  '  tip  me  'arf-a- 
crown,'  or  something." 

It  was  nearly  four  o'clock  when  he  went  to 
the  house  of  Goubaud.  All  preparations  had 
been  made,  and  his  first  inquiry  was  for  the  child. 
She  was  by  her  mother's  coffin,  Alphonsine  told 
him  with  sympathy  both  effusive  and  honest — 
the  poor  little  one,  it  was  heart-rending,  she  did 
not  cry, — she  was  not  a  child  at  all — and  she 
would  eat  nothing.  But  it  was  cruel !  she  would 
eat  nothing  at  all — not  even  candy.  Alphonsine 
had  purchased  her  seven  cents  worth  of  candy ; 
3 


34 


THE  MIDGE. 


but  she  would  not  eat  it.  Perhaps  she  would 
eat  if  M.  le  docteur  spoke  to  her. 

"  Let  her  be,"  he  said ;  "  she'll  eat  when  nature 
tells  her  to.  She'll  come  to  it  in  time — she's 
young.  There's  candy  yet  in  the  world  for  her. 
But  I'll  go  up  and  see  if  I  ain't  clumsy  enough 
to  make  her  cry.  That's  much  more  necessary." 

When  he  entered  the  room  up  stairs  the  child 
was  sitting  by  the  coffin,  as  Alphonsine  had  said ; 
but  she  rose  instantly,  and  came  to  meet  him 
before  he  could  cross  the  threshold,  stretching 
out  her  small  hand  in  silence,  giving  him  one 
glance  as  she  did  so,  and  then  lowering  her  tear 
less  dark  eyes.  It  was  an  absolutely  unchildlike 
greeting,  and  it  conveyed  a  subtle  hint  that  she 
did  not  wish  him  to  come  nearer  to  her  dead. 

He  sat  down  on  a  chair  by  the  door  and  drew 
her  to  him.  She  passively  yielded  as  he  put  his 
arm  about  her ;  but  when  he  made  a  motion  to 
lift  her  to  his  knee,  she  stopped  him  with  a  quick 
instinctive  little  gesture.  There  was  something 
of  gentle,  innocent  rebuke  in  her  attitude,  as 
though  he  had  made  light  of  her  grief. 

"My  dear,"  he  began,  softly  and  somewhat 
nervously,  "we  must  take  your  mother  away 
from  you  before  very  long." 

"When?"  she  asked,  without  looking  at  him. 

"The  clergyman  will  be  here  at  four  o'clock." 

"So  soon?"  she  cried,  with  a  little  shiver,  and 
a  quick  look  of  appeal  and  question. 


THE  MIDGE. 


35 


"Yes,  my  dear.  It's  the  best  way.  Yes,  I 
know  it's  hard;  but  it  would  be  harder  if  we  were 
to  put  it  off.  And  now  you'll  be  a  brave  girl, 
won't  you,  and  — " 

She  would  not  let  him  finish,  but  broke  in  with 
her  oddly  mature  self-restraint: 

"  Yes.  Better.  I  see.  They  do  not  want  her 
here.  It  is  well." 

"'Tisn't  that,  my  child.  Madame  Goubaud 
does  not  mean  to  be  unkind  — " 

"  I  know.  She  knows  not  better.  I  compre 
hend,  monsieur." 

The  Doctor  felt  curiously  embarrassed.  He 
wished  she  would  act  like  a  child.  A  vague  idea 
passed  through  his  mind,  that  he  would  like  to 
know  whether  she  had  ever  played  with  a  doll. 

"How  old  are  you?"  he  asked,  in  perplexity. 

"I  have  twelve  years,"  she  answered,  curtly. 
Then,  after  a  pause,  with  a  sudden  petulance, — "  I 
am  no  more  a  child." 

The  Doctor  smiled.  She  was  a  child,  after 
all. 

"Well,  now,"  he  said,  "I'm  forty,  and  I'm  a 
good  deal  of  a  child  yet." 

She  gave  him  another  quick,  timid  look,  as 
if  apprehensive  of  some  levity  or  insincerity. 

"  Yes,  my  dear,"  he  went  on,  holding  her  more 
firmly  within  his  arm — she  did  not  resist:  "I'm  a 
good  deal  older  than  you,  and  I've  got  gray 
hairs — look  at  'em — but  I  should  feel  sorry,  I 


36  THE  MIDGE. 

should,  if  I  got  too  old  to  remember  what  it  was 
to  be  a  child.  Gray  hairs  don't  make  a  man  old. 
I  know  how  I  felt  when  I  was  just  your  age,  and 
I  know  just  how  you  feel  now.  I  lost  my  own 
mother  when  I  was  two  years  older  than  you  are, 
and  I  remember  all  about  it,  as  if  it  was  yester 
day.  I'd  like  to  tell  you  how  it  was." 

He  paused  a  moment. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  about  it?" 

She  kept  her  face  averted  and  her  eyes  cast 
down;  but  she  nodded  assent. 

"  She'd  been  sick  a  long  time ;  but  when  she 
died,  it  was  very  sudden,  and  I  wasn't  there. 
I've  often  wished  since  then  I'd  been  thereto  kiss 
her  good-bye,  or  help  take  care  of  her,  or  do 
something  to  show  that  I  loved  her.  But  I 
didn't  know  anything  about  it  until  they  told  me. 
And  then  I  felt — I  can't  tell  you  how  I  felt.  But 
it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I  was  the  lonesomest  boy 
on  earth.  And  I  didn't  dare  to  cry,  either:  I'd 
have  felt  a  lot  better  if  I  could  have  cried;  but  I 
didn't  dare  to.  My  father  was  a  severe,  stern 
sort  of  man,  and  he  didn't  believe  in  people's  cry 
ing,  or  laughing,  either.  If  I'd  have  cried,  he'd 
have  sent  me  to  bed.  And  I  couldn't  stand  that 
— lying  in  bed  and  thinking  how  lonesome  I  was. 
Besides,  I  was  fourteen  years  old,  and  I  thought 
I  was  too  big  a  boy  to  cry." 

He  stole  a  glance  at  the  pale  face.  He  saw 
that  the  child  was  listening  to  him. 


THE  MIDGE. 


37 


"Well,  I  went  out  in  the  yard,  just  to  getaway 
from  the  people.  Folks  in  my  time  were  a  sort 
of  hard — I  don't  think  they  quite  understood  us 
young  ones — they  didn't  seem  to  care  much 
about  us.  So  I  went  out  into  the  yard.  And 
there  was  an  old  nigger,  named  Japhet,  who  used 
to  chop  wood  for  my  father.  Uncle  Japhe,  we 
called  him.  He  was  out  there  in  the  woodshed. 
And  when  he  saw  me,  what  do  you  think  that 
old  nigger  did?  Why,  he  didn't  say  one  word — 
he  just  caught  hold  of  me  and  hauled  me  right 
up  to  him,  with  his  arm  around  my  head,  and  my 
face  up  against  his  ragged  old  coat,  and  he 
held  me  there,  and  I  just  cried — cried  like  a  baby, 
with  that  old  nigger  holding  on  to  me.  It 
couldn't  bring  mother  back,  but  — " 

She  was  melting.  Her  head  was  still  bent 
down;  but  he  could  feel  her  breath  come  short 
and  quick;  and  with  one  hand  she  plucked  at 
his  coat-sleeve,  pinching  the  cloth  between  her 
fingers,  letting  it  slip  and  picking  it  up  again  as 
if  she  found  relief  in  the  mechanical  action. 

"  It  didn't  seem  so  lonesome  then,  when  I  had 
Uncle  Japhe,  for  all  he  was  only  an  old  nigger. 
There's  lots  of  help  in  this  world,  if  we'll  only 
just  let  ourselves  be  helped.  Don't  you  think 
so?" 

He  slipped  his  arm  around  her  neck,  and  with 
a  sudden  sob  that  was  almost  a  cry,  she  pressed 
her  face  against  his  breast.  But  just  then  the  door 


38  THE  MIDGE. 

opened,  and  she  struggled  free,  and  stood  up, 
her  eyes  moist  and  her  teeth  together,  to  face  the 
Reverend  Theodore  Beatty  Pratt. 

The  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  stood  in  the  door 
way,  looking  disapprovingly  on  two  small  candles 
that  flickered  at  the  head  of  the  coffin.  He  had 
confided  his  overcoat  to  M.  Goubaud,  who  stood 
behind  him.  He  had  moreover  impressed  M. 
Goubaud  into  the  service  of  the  Church;  and 
had  made  the  unwilling  Frenchman  assist  him  in 
putting  on  his  surplice.  M.  Goubaud's  face  ex 
pressed  disgust,  subdued  by  politeness.  He  did 
not  like  the  appearance  of  a  Protestant  clergyman 
in  his  Catholic  house;  and  he  was  inclined  to 
look  on  the  Church  of  England  ritual  with  crit 
ical  contempt. 

Mr.  Pratt  waited  a  moment  to  make  up  his 
mind  that  it  would  be  unadvisable  to  demand  the 
suppression  of  the  candles,  and  then  advanced 
with  amiable  dignity  and  laid  his  hand  on  the 
girl's  head. 

"  You  are  very  young,  my  child,"  he  said,  sol 
emnly,  "  to  bear  such  a  heavy  weight  of  affliction." 

There  was  no  answer. 

"  We  cannot  tell,  any  of  us,  why  these  trials 
are  sent,"  he  further  observed,  and  then,  becoming 
conscious  of  the  little  one's  complete  unrespon- 
siveness,  he  concluded,  blandly: 

"  I  will  talk  with  you  at  some  future  time,  my 
child.  Dr.  Peters— ?" 


THE  MIDGE. 


39 


Dr.  Peters  answered  with  a  look  of  assent 
Everything  was  ready.  The  little  undertaker  and 
his  assistant  were  posted  near  the  door,  and  the 
household  of  Goubaud,  domestic  and  operative, 
had  filed  in  and  ranged  along  the  walls  of  the 
small  room;  the  workmen  hiding  their  hands 
behind  their  backs,  the  palms  outward.  Alphon- 
sine  rolled  her  round  red  arms  in  her  apron,  and 
looked  tearfully  across  at  the  little  orphan,  who 
still  stood  by  the  Doctor's  side,  erect  and  silent. 
She  did  not  lean  against  him ;  but  as  the  service 
went  on,  she  let  his  arm  draw  closer  about  her, 
and  when  the  ashes  fell  from  the  clergyman's 
hand  upon  the  coffin  top,  she  caught  her  friend's 
fingers  in  an  impulsive  clutch. 

Even  poor  Pratt's  thin  voice  could  not  spoil 
the  beauty  of  the  words  he  spoke.  As  his  high 
tones  rang  out  through  the  silent  house,  in  rhyth 
mic  rise  and  fall,  the  little  man  seemed  to  take 
on  something  of  the  dignity  of  the  greater  spirits 
whose  speech  he  echoed.  Peters  sat  and  listened, 
and  forgot  the  cold  little  room,  the  dull,  poverty- 
stricken  faces  around  him,  the  ghastly  pine  coffin 
on  its  staring  trestles :  memory  slipping  back  to 
the  country  church  on  summer  Sundays,  where  the 
wind  shook  the  leaves  about  the  open  casements, 
the  birds  twittered  outside,  all  through  service 
and  sermon,  while  the  old  pastor's  sonorous 
cadences  fell  on  the  unheeding  ears  of  a  yellow- 
haired  boy,  sitting  in  the  front  pew,  his  restless 


4Q  THE  MIDGE. 

legs  swinging  half  a  foot  above  the  floor,  his 
whole  boy's  soul  yearning  to  be  out  in  the  fields 
and  the  fresh  air,  angrily  resenting  the  necessity 
of  wasting  a  morning  of  sunshine  and  clear  sky. 
He  looked  down  at  the  subdued  young  face  at 
his  side,  and  pitied  the  child  who  had  so  soon 
learned  the  lesson  of  self-restraint  and  patience. 
After  her  hand  had  grasped  his,  she  let  it  lie 
there  through  the  brief  service;  but  she  did  not 
cry,  and  her  eyes  never  once  left  the  coffin. 
When  the  last  word  was  said,  she  went  unresist 
ingly  with  Alphonsine,  and  put  on  her  worn  little 
hat  and  jacket. 

There  was  one  shabby  carriage  behind  the 
shabby  hearse.  Mme.  Goubaud,  in  her  Sunday 
clothes,  got  in  first,  and  took  the  child  on  the 
seat  with  her.  Then  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt 
climbed  in,  and  M.  Goubaud  followed.  Business 
was  dull,  and  the  chance  of  riding  in  state  as 
chief  mourners  at  a  funeral — even  a  Protestant 
funeral — was  not  to  be  missed.  This  had  been 
Mme.  Goubaud's  opinion,  and  when  Mme.  Gou 
baud  thought  that  anything  justified  an  interrup 
tion  of  business,  her  husband  never  questioned  the 
propriety  of  her  decision.  Her  face  bore  a  look 
of  stern  importance  as  she  sat  on  the  back  seat 
of  the  carriage  and  gazed  fixedly  before  her, 
ignoring  a  staring  world. 

Dr.  Peters  stood  irresolutely  on  the  sidewalk. 
Mr.  Pratt  looked  as  if  he  expected  his  fellow 


THE  MIDGE.  4! 

church-member  to  be  one  of  the  party;  but  there 
was  no  place  for  the  Doctor,  unless  he  took  the 
child  on  his  lap,  and  he  hesitated.  The  driver 
settled  it  by  starting  up  his  horses,  and  the  Doc 
tor  turned  away,  but  not  too  soon  to  see  the  girl 
look  up  with  pained,  surprised  eyes,  that  mutely 
accused  him  of  deserting  her. 

"  I  ought  to  have  gone,"  he  said  to  himself. 
But  it  was  too  late,  the  carriage  was  rattling 
down  the  street  after  the  jolting  hearse,  and  he 
could  only  stare  at  it  until  it  grew  gray  behind 
a  veil  of  whirling  snowflakes. 

"  I  ought  to  have  gone,"  he  thought,  and  the 
remembrance  of  that  piteous  look  went  with  him 
all  the  rest  of  the  day. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HE  found  it  hard  to  get  rid  of  that  look.  He 
was  not  sentimental ;  he  had  always  had 
that  understanding  with  himself,  that  he  was  not 
sentimental.  And  there  are  those  who  would 
call  his  code  of  morals  lax.  But  there  were 
some  matters  in  which  he  had  an  uneasy,  child 
like  sensitiveness  of  conscience.  To  be  sus 
pected,  even,  of  the  most  trivial  carelessness  in 
the  payment  of  his  debts ;  to  be  thought  unkind 
or  discourteous  to  children  and  women, — these 
things  wounded  him  sorely.  Not  that  he  very 
greatly  troubled  himself  about  the  world's  opin 
ion  of  him,  but  that  any  suggestion  of  remissness 
in  these  particulars  filled  him  with  self-accusing 
doubts.  It  was  a  part  of  his  old-bachelor  fussi- 
ness,  perhaps. 

Therefore  he  was  troubled  to  think  that  he 
had  left  the  child  to  the  charitable  offices  of  the 
Goubaud  family  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt,  at 
the  most  trying  ordeal  of  the  day.  They  all 
meant  well,  those  three  people,  but  they  were  a 
good  deal  like  the  folks  who  had  made  his  boy 
hood  gloomy.  They  did  not  understand  chil- 
42 


THE  MIDGE. 


43 


dren.  Being  a  child  himself,  the  Doctor  felt  this 
strongly.  He  thought  of  the  long,  cold  ride  to 
the  New  Jersey  cemetery;  the  unrelieved  ugli 
ness  of  the  hurried  interment,  the  probable  re 
marks  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  on  the  way 
home,  and  he  felt  that  he  could  have  smoothed 
the  rough  path  of  the  little  girl  with  the  long 
name,  if  he  had  taken  her  on  his  knee  in  the 
carriage.  Well,  it  could  not  be  helped  now; 
but,  all  the  same,  he  was  uncomfortable.  He 
went  home  and  tried  to  work,  but  he  made  a 
poor  hand  at  it. 

The  light  was  bad,  for  one  thing,  and  he  was 
not  in  the  mood  for  work  upon  the  cannon.  He 
reflected,  with  some  perturbation  of  spirit,  that 
he  had  of  late  been  conscious  of  a  certain  lack  of 
interest  in  the  cannon.  The  perfection  of  that 
invention  had  been  his  hobby  for  thirteen  years. 
He  had  worked  over  it,  thought  over  it,  pot 
tered  and  played  with  it.  It  had  stimulated  his 
ambition  and  amused  him  in  his  idleness.  To 
be  sure,  it  had  never  come  to  anything,  and  it 
gave  no  signs  of  coming  to  anything.  It  had 
changed  its  form  over  and  over  again,  but  some 
how  it  was  always  a  little  behind  the  latest  dis 
coveries  in  gun  building.  The  Doctor  tried  to 
keep  up  with  the  march  of  progress,  but  he  was 
always — he  frankly  admitted  to  himself — far 
back  in  the  tail  of  the  procession.  Once  he  had 
got  a  small  appropriation  from  the  government ; 


44 


THE  MIDGE. 


and  he  had  built  his  gun  and  taken  it  to  Fort 
Hamilton  for  trial,  and  there  it  had  burst.  It 
had  not  injured  any  one,  because,  as  the  inventor 
grimly  remarked,  no  one  had  had  faith  enough 
in  it  to  stand  near  it  when  it  went  off.  There 
was  a  flaw  in  the  casting ;  it  was  not  his  fault ; 
but  the  appropriation  was  exhausted,  and  the  gun 
was  untried ;  and  before  he  could  apply  for 
another  appropriation,  the  march  of  progress 
made  it  necessary  to  re-invent  the  gun  after  the 
latest  fashion. 

He  had  gone  at  it  cheerfully  enough,  and 
modeled  and  remodeled,  and  it  was  only  recently 
that  he  had  begun  to  feel  as  if  his  patient  tinker 
ing  was  but  a  sham  sort  of  work. 

"  Great  Scott !  "  he  thought,  in  dismal  amuse 
ment,  "  am  I  getting  too  old  to  make-believe  any 
longer  ?  " 

It  really  looked  as  though  he  had  reached  a 
second  time  that  sad  period  when  we  realize  that 
our  toys  are  toys,  and  not, — what  was  it  that  we 
thought  them  ? 

The  Doctor's  domain  was  extensive.  Five 
years  after  his  return  from  the  war  he  had  taken 
the  two  upper  floors  of  the  old  house,  on  a  fif 
teen  years'  lease.  He  had  tried  to  get  a  lease 
for  a  longer  term,  but  even  the  conservative  old 
German  who  was  his  landlord  knew  that  rents 
would  go  up  as  the  years  went  on ;  and  fifteen 
years  was  the  longest  period  for  which  he  would 


THE  MIDGE. 


45 


agree  to  let  Dr.  Peters  have  the  rooms  at  the 
modest  rate  that  they  then  commanded. 

He  had  wanted  a  home,  this  lonely  bachelor 
stranded  after  the  great  war.  Bachelors  some 
times  want  homes ;  they  even  long  for  them  with 
a  conscious,  understanding,  intelligent  desire  that 
their  married  friends  never  credit  them  with. 
"  You  don't  know  what  it  is  to  have  a  home," 
says  Smith,  who  married  at  twenty-five,  to  Jones, 
who  is  unmarried  at  forty.  But  Jones  does  know 
what  it  would  be  to  have  a  home,  for  does  he 
not  know  what  it  is  not  to  have  a  home  ?  Ay, 
far  more  than  complacent  Smith,  who  made  his 
nest  from  mere  blind  instinct,  long  before  he 
could  have  become  conscious  of  his  own  need 
of  a  nest — far  more  than  happy,  comfortable,  sat 
isfied  Smith,  does  this  lone  bird  of  celibacy  of  a 
Jones  know  of  the  superiority  of  a  consecrated 
abiding-place  to  his  cold  casual  twig. 

There  is  always  something  comically,  dismally 
pathetic  about  the  bachelor's  attempt  to  construct 
a  home.  I  was  once  at  the  performance  of  an 
opera  attempted  by  a  weak  little  theatrical  troupe 
that  was  in  bad  luck.  The  tenor  had  failed  them 
at  the  last  moment,  so  a  good-looking  supernu 
merary  stood  up  in  the  tenor's  clothes  while  the 
poor  hard-working,  middle-aged  soprano  sang 
both  parts  of  their  duets.  That  is  what  the 
bachelor  tries  to  do — to  sing  both  parts  of  a 
duet. 


46  THE  MIDGE. 

It  is  always  a  failure;  and  so  the  Doctor  found 
it.  He  had  his  bed-room,  his  sitting-room  and 
his  work-room,  and  upstairs  was  his  kitchen  and 
his  servants'  room.  They  were  all  good  rooms, 
each  after  its  kind.  They  were  furnished  as  he 
liked ;  they  were  warm  enough  in  winter  and 
cool  enough  in  summer.  Each  one  had  four 
walls,  a  floor  and  a  ceiling.  And  yet  they  were 
not  a  home ;  and  he  had  not  been  a  day  in  them 
before  he  knew  this. 

For  a  little  while  he  tried  to  discover  and  sup 
ply  the  elusive  deficiency;  but  after  a  time  he 
realized  that  the  upholsterer  could  not  do  it  for 
him ;  that  it  was  not  a  matter  of  easy  chairs,  of 
pictures  on  the  walls  ;  that  the  light  and  warmth 
that  were  lacking  were  not  born  of  lamps  and 
fires.  It  was  a  twig,  after  all ;  not  a  nest ;  and 
he  made  up  his  mind  to  it. 

He  had  furnished  his  kitchen  with  elaborate 
care,  reproducing,  as  far  as  memory  would  serve 
him,  the  generous  equipment  of  the  old  Dutch 
household  in  which  he  had  passed  his  boyhood. 
He  had  had  a  fancy  to  install  there  the  blackest 
and  oldest  Virginia  negress  that  he  could  find ; 
but  he  never  carried  out  the  scheme.  The  shriv 
eled  German  woman  whom  he  had  engaged  to 
"  do  for  "  him  temporarily  continued  to  do  for 
him ;  and  now,  after  eight  years,  it  seemed  prob 
able  that  she  would  continue  to  do  for  him  as 
long  as  he  could  sustain  life  on  her  cooking. 


THE  MIDGE. 


47 


He  threw  down  his  tools  and  wandered  list 
lessly  about  the  rooms.  In  the  sitting-room  he 
noticed  how  faded  was  the  green  reps  covering  the 
furniture,  and  how  worn  was  the  old-fashioned 
Brussels  carpet.  He  glanced  through  the  open 
door  of  the  bed-room.  It  looked  like  what  it 
was — a  place  to  sleep  in.  No  one  would  ever 
have  thought  of  stretching  out  on  that  painfully 
clean  and  prim  little  bed  to  while  away  an  after 
noon  with  pipe  and  book.  He  stared  out  of  the 
window  at  Washington  Square,  and  saw  the  bare 
trees  waiting  sullenly  in  the  gray  twilight  for  the 
next  snow-squall  to  buffet  them  about  and  rack 
and  rattle  their  poor  dry  twigs. 

All  these  things  he  observed  without  fairly 
realizing  their  ugliness  ;  but  with  a  vague  sense 
of  lonely  discomfort,  which  he  did  not  quite 
understand.  It  had  been  growing  on  him  of 
late. 

"  Perhaps  it's  Luise's  cooking,"  he  thought : 
"  I  ought  to  be  inured  to  it ;  but  maybe  it's  like 
arsenic  or  morphine — sort  of  cumulative  poison. 
I  guess  I'm  getting  dyspeptic." 

He  went  up  stairs  to  take  a  look  at  the  kitchen 
and  see  if  he  could  conjure  up  again  his  old 
dream  of  a  "  nigger  cook  "  of  his  own.  Perhaps 
that  might  be  the  salvation  of  his  bachelor  life, 
after  all. 

It  was  a  good  kitchen,  there  was  no  doubt 
about  that.  Luise  had  never  brought  out  its 


48  THE  MIDGE. 

possibilities.  There  was  a  huge  range,  that 
would  have  cooked  a  dinner  for  a  regiment. 
Hanging  up  on  the  wall  was  the  Dutch  oven  that 
he  had  had  made  eight  years  ago,  on  the  model 
of  the  one  in  his  mother's  house,  sketched  from 
memory.  Luise  had  never  used  the  Dutch  oven. 
There  were  ample  cupboards,  stocked  with  yellow 
crockery,  bowls  and  pitchers  and  shallow  dishes, 
more  than  Luise  could  ever  use.  And  she 
grumbled  at  having  to  keep  them  clean.  The 
back  hall-bedroom  had  been  fitted  up  for  a  pan 
try.  It  was  quite  as  large  as  his  mother's  pantry; 
and  he  had  fondly  dreamed  of  filling  it  with  jars 
of  jam  and  preserves  and  pickles,  and  of  ranging 
pallid  disks  of  pie  on  the  long  shelves.  The  jars 
were  there,  along  with  the  pie-plates — yes,  there 
was  even  a  great  stick  of  sealing-wax  to  seal  the 
preserves  up  with,  in  the  old-fashioned  way — but 
jars  and  plates  were  empty. 

The  whole  place  really  seemed  to  cry  aloud 
for  a  good  plain  cook.  He  pondered,  as  he  de 
scended  the  stairs,  over  the  problem.  Could  he 
get  the  cook,  and  would  she,  once  got,  realize 
his  fond  dreams  ?  And — coming  down  to  a 
necessary  preliminary — had  he  the  moral  courage 
to  get  rid  of  Luise  ? 

He  was  sensible  of  a  guilty  feeling  of  shame 
and  fear  when  Luise  brought  him  his  dinner  that 
night.  He  looked  at  her  shamefacedly  as  he 
tried  to  make  up  his  mind  whether  any  other 


THE  MIDGE. 


49 


woman  could  be  quite  as  ugly  as  she  was,  or 
whether  nature  held  somewhere  among  her  mon 
strosities  and  mistakes  a  pendant  to  that  par 
boiled  face. 

He  tried  to  think  charitably  of  Luise;  but 
there  was  no  room  for  doubt  about  the  dinner. 
It  was  simply  bad.  Many  people  like  German 
cooking ;  but  nobody  could  like  Luise's  German 
cooking.  She  had  a  way  of  announcing  the 
names  of  the  dishes,  as  she  set  them  down  with 
a  vicious  slam,  and  she  had  told  him  that  the 
viand  of  the  evening  was  a  "  Wiener  Schnitzel." 
He  credited  her  with  forethought  in  this,  for  if 
she  had  not  done  so,  he  would  not  have  been 
able  to  guess  the  fact  that  what  was  before  him 
had  once  been  a  veal  cutlet. 

He  smoked  two  pipes  after  his  dinner,  and 
then  he  went  around  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault. 
For  fourteen  years  he  had  gone  to  the  Brasserie 
Pigault.  When  he  first  set  up  his  bachelor 
establishment,  he  had  resolved  to  stay  at  home 
of  nights,  and  for  a  month  or  two  the  Brasserie 
had  missed  him,  and  he  had  sat  in  his  green  reps 
easy-chair,  that  was  not,  and  never  could  have 
been  meant  to  be  easy,  before  his  meagre  little 
hard-coal  fire.  But  it  was  not  staying  at  home, 
after  all ;  it  was  only  staying  in  the  house ;  and 
by  and  by  he  went  back  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault, 
which  was  a  home  indeed,  after  its  sort,  to  him 
and  to  many  another  lonely  bachelor. 
4 


50  THE  MIDGE. 

If  you  put  it  that  a  man  habitually  spends  his 
evenings  in  a  beer-shop,  it  does  not  sound  well. 
It  not  only  suggests  orgies  and  deep  potations, 
but  it  is  low.  One  thinks  of  Robert  Burns,  of 
the  police-reports,  of  neglected  wives  waiting  at 
home,  of  brawls  and  drunkenness  and  of  a  cheap 
grade  of  tobacco. 

This  is  largely  due  to  the  influence  of  a  num 
ber  of  estimable  gentlemen  who  wander  about 
this  broad  land,  patronizing  second-class  hotels 
and  denouncing  in  scathing  terms  the  Demon 
Drink.  They  sternly  refuse  to  admit  any  dis 
tinction  between  one  place  where  liquor  is  sold 
and  another  place  where  liquor  is  sold.  Yet  I 
think  the  most  vehement  of  these  public-spirited 
men  would  be  inclined  to  acknowledge  that  there 
is  a  bright  side  to  the  beer  question  if  he  could 
be  induced  to  pass  a  few  evenings,  non-profes- 
sionally,  in  such  a  place  as  the  Brasserie  Pigault. 

True,  he  could  not  see  there  the  red-eyed  con 
tention  that  furnishes  him  with  so  much  useful 
oratorical  material.  No  upraised  bludgeon,  no 
gleaming  stiletto  would  gladden  his  eyes.  No 
degraded  specimen  of  humanity  would  point  a 
prohibitionist's  moral  by  going  to  sleep  on  the 
floor.  No  ribaldry  would  agreeably  shock  his 
expectant  ears. 

He  would  see  Mme.  Pigault,  neat  and  comely, 
knitting  behind  her  desk.  He  would  see  Mr. 
Martin  and  M.  Ovide  Marie  at  their  everlasting 


THE  MIDGE.  5  j 

game  of  dominos.  He  would  see  little  Potain, 
whose  wife  died  two  years  ago,  after  forty-seven 
years  of  married  life,  and  who  would  be  more 
lonely  than  he  is,  if  it  were  not  for  Mme.  Pigault's 
hospitality,  drinking  his  one  glass  of  vermouth 
gamme,  and  reading  all  the  papers  without  mis 
sing  a  column.  He  would  see  poor  old  Parker 
Prout,  the  artist,  who  has  been  painting  all  day 
long  for  the  Nassau  Street  auction  shops — they 
will  not  hang  Prout's  pictures,  even  at  the  National 
Academy — and  who  has  come  to  the  Brasserie 
Pigault  to  buy  one  glass  of  beer  for  himself,  and 
to  wait  and  hope  that  somebody  will  come  in 
who  will  buy  another  for  him.  He  would  see 
good-natured  Jack  Wilder,  the  bright  young 
reporter  of  the  Morning  Record,  dropping  in  to 
perform  that  act  of  chanty,  and  to  square  accounts 
by  mildly  chaffing  old  Prout  about  the  art  which 
he  still  loves,  after  forty  years  of  servitude  to  the 
auctioneer  and  the  maker  of  chromo-lithographs. 
He  would  see  Dr.  Peters  taking  his  regular  ra 
tions — two  glasses  of  lager,  the  first  of  each  keg 
— and  studying  the  Courrier  to  keep  up  his 
French. 

And  on  this  particular  night  there  was  a  rare 
guest  to  be  seen  under  Mme.  Pigault's  roof,  for 
Father  Dube  came  in,  big,  ponderous  and  genial, 
rubbing  his  fat  red  hands,  and  smiling  a  sociable 
benediction  upon  the  place  and  all  within  it. 

Mme.  Pigault,  alert  and  flattered,  rose  to  wel- 


g 2  THE  MIDGE. 

come  him,  and  he  unbuttoned  his  heavy  overcoat, 
with  its  great  cape,  and  leaned  on  the  desk  to 
chat  with  her  for  a  moment.  How  was  the  baby 
and  little  Eulalie?  And  business  was  always 
good  ?  That  was  to  be  expected.  People  knew 
where  they  were  comfortable,  and  everybody  was 
comfortable  chez  Mme.  Pigaidt.  And  now  he  saw 
his  good  friend  the  Doctor  sitting  there.  The 
Doctor  looked  as  if  he  would  like  a  little  game 
of  dominos.  He  would  go  and  challenge  his 
good  friend  the  Doctor.  And  yes,  why  not  ? 
He  would  take  a  glass  of  that  excellent  Chablis 
of  Mme.  Pigault's,  that  he  had  tasted  when  he  had 
last  visited  Mme.  Pigault.  Was  it  so  long  ago 
as  Easter?  Ah,  but  the  time  goes!  And  an  old 
man  is  slow.  He  cannot  see  his  friends  as  often 
as  he  could  wish.  And  Mme.  Pigault,  being 
prosperous  and  blessed  by  heaven,  has  no  need 
of  him.  Ah,  the  Doctor  is  waiting.  And  Mme. 
Pigault  will  not  forget  the  Chablis  ? 

And  so  this  simple-minded  old  priest,  who 
knew  no  better  than  to  sit  down  in  his  parishion 
er's  brasserie  and  take  a  glass  of  wine  and  play  a 
game  of  dominos  with  a  heretic,  lumbered  over 
to  the  Doctor's  table,  and  struggled  out  of  his 
overcoat,  with  Louis's  help,  and  sat  down  oppo 
site  his  good  friend  Peters.  And  Louis  bustled 
eagerly  about,  and  opened  a  new  bottle  of  the 
Chablis,  and  brought  the  box  with  the  best  domi 
nos,  that  Mme.  Pigault  took  from  her  desk ;  and 


THE  MIDGE. 


53 


cleaned  a  slate;  and  Mme.  Pigault  looked  on 
proudly  as  her  favorite  customer  and  her  spiritual 
guide  shuffled  and  drew. 

Father  Dube  had  come  to  this  country  at  the 
age  of  twelve;  and  it  was  his  boast  that  his  Eng 
lish  was  as  good  as  his  French,  for  if  the  English 
was  a  trifle  stiff,  the  French  was  not  quite  aca 
demic. 

"I  hear,"  he  said,  "that  you  have  been  poach 
ing  on  my  preserves,  and  stealing  a  whole  French 
family  from  my  fold." 

There  was  just  a  trace  of  the  foreigner  in  the 
precision  and  emphasis  with  which  he  brought 
out  the  figure  of  speech,  in  conversational  quota 
tion  marks.  It  was  a  joke  of  long  standing  be 
tween  these  two  that  the  priest  on  one  side  and 
the  Doctor  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  on  the 
other,  were  engaged  in  an  active  warfare  of 
proselytism. 

"No,  sir,"  the  Doctor  answered,  smiling,  "I 
deny  the  imputation.  The  family  you  refer  to  has 
long  been  a  pillar  of  the  Church  of  England." 

"It  is  for  that  reason,  then,"  Father  Dube  sug 
gested,  slyly, "  that  the  French  Benevolent  Society 
has  taken  charge  of  the  case.  I  saw  Peloubet 
this  afternoon." 

The  Doctor  flushed  a  little. 

"  The  mother  was  born  in  France,  as  near  as  I 
can  find  out;  and  the  child  certainly  was.  But 
they're  Protestants,  all  the  same." 


54 


THE  MIDGE. 


The  priest's  broad  hand  was  stretched  across 
the  table,  overturning  and  exposing  half-a-dozen 
of  the  dominos  he  had  been  laboriously  standing 
on  end,  and  he  gently  patted  the  Doctor's  sleeve. 

"  My  good  friend,  that  is  all  right.  I  know. 
I  know.  It  is  your  '  set,'  is  it  not?" 

The  Doctor  smiled  and  flushed  a  little  redder, 
conscious  of  his  own  sensitiveness. 

"Double-six.  Oh,  you  want  me  to  keep  the 
slate?"  Father  Dube  had  pushed  it  across  to 
him.  "  I  say,  Dube,  I'm  glad  you  spoke  of  it. 
I  want  to  ask  you  something." 

"Fifteen.     What  is  it?" 

"  It's  about  the  child."  The  Doctor  was  silent 
for  a  minute,  knitting  his  brows  as  he  played  on 
mechanically.  "  I  don't  know  that  I've  done  par 
ticularly  well  in  letting  the  Society  leave  her 
where  she  is.  You  know  that  Goubaud  family 
better  than  I  do." 

"  They  are  decent  people." 

"Oh,  I  know  that.  But,  you  see,  here's  the 
way  it  is.  This  child's  a  girl — thin  little  thing, 
about  twelve  years  old  or  so,  and  high-strung — 
the  most  high-strung,  old-fashioned,  queer  little 
witch  I  ever  saw.  And  old  woman  Goubaud — 
well,  she  isn't  exactly  what  you'd  call  high-strung 
herself."  ' 

"  If  I  know  what  you  mean  by  '  high-strung  ' 
—no." 

"  Nervous — sensitive — delicate — all  that  kind 


THE  MIDGE.  55 

of  thing.  These  people, — these  Talbots, — seem 
to  have  been  pretty  poor ;  but  they  were  rather  a 
swell  lot  at  the  start,  and  I  don't  think  this  mite 
has  been  accustomed  to  any  sort  of  rough,  un 
sympathetic  treatment.  I  shouldn't  like  to  leave 
her  there  if  I  thought  the  old  woman  was  going 
to  make  it  hard  for  her." 

"  I  shall  have  to  draw."  The  priest  shrugged 
his  shoulders,  and  took  a  pinch  of  snuff,  offering 
the  box  to  the  Doctor,  who  bowed,  and  waved  it 
away.  The  proffer  had  been  made  and  declined 
many  hundred  times  in  the  course  of  their  inti 
macy.  "The  destruction  of  the  poor  is  their 
poverty,"  the  Father  went  on :  "  poverty  is  hard, 
and  they  have  grown  hard  in  their  poverty. 
They  do  not  mean  it, — but — what  will  you  have  ? 
They  are  poor.  Why  do  you  not  send  the  child 
to  your  mission  ?  Your  friend,  Mr.  Pratt — " 

"  The  mission's  no  place  for  a  child  like  that. 
There's  too  much  promiscuous  Mary  Ann  and 
Sairey  Jane  there.  Those  tough  little  cats  would 
worry  the  life  out  of  her.  I  had  half  a  notion  of 
getting  Madame  Pigault  here  to  take  care  of  her 
up  stairs.  Threes,  is  it  ?  Now  I've  got  to  draw. 
What,  with  stray  kids  and  bad  cards  at  domi- 
nos,  there's  no  rest  for  a  quiet,  respectable  citi 
zen.  What  do  you  think  of  bringing  her  here  ? 
It's  a  nice  place  up  stairs,  and  I  don't  believe 
Madame  Pigault  will  instill  ideas  of  intemperance 
into  her  youthful  mind." 


5 6  THE  MIDGE. 

"  It  would  be  well,"  assented  the  priest,  after 
another  pinch  of  snuff,  and  an  interval  of  reflec 
tion.  "  But,  perhaps  you  would  do  better  to  wait 
and  see  how  the  child  gets  along.  It  is  only  for 
a  few  weeks,  I  understand  ;  and  perhaps  she  will 
not  be  unhappy  there.  You  must  not  forget  that 
it  will  be  much  for  Goubaud  to  have  the  money 
the  Society  will  pay  for  her  board.  He  is  an 
honest,  hard-working  man,  that  Goubaud,  and 
he  scarcely  makes  enough  in  the  year  to  pay  his 
rent  and  live." 

"  I'll  go  round  there  in  the  morning,  and  see," 
said  the  Doctor,  trying  to  dismiss  the  subject 
from  his  mind :  "  Ten  !  and  that's  domino,  I 
believe.  My  cards  weren't  so  unlucky,  after  all." 

A  strong  wind  from  the  northeast  brought  the 
faint  sound  of  St.  George's  bells  down  to  Wash 
ington  Square,  as  the  Doctor  turned  out  of  South 
Fifth  avenue.  It  was  as  though  Stuyvesant 
Square,  snugly  locked  up  for  the  night,  sent  a 
midnight  message  of  reproach  to  the  broader 
and  more  democratic  ground  whose  hard  walks 
knew  no  rest  from  echoing  footsteps,  in  light  or 
dark.  Here  the  branches  swayed  and  creaked 
in  the  night  breeze,  the  gas-lamps  flickered  and 
winked ;  from  time  to  time  a  tramp,  or,  from  the 
foul  streets  below  and  to  the  eastward,  some 
thing  worse,  in  woman's  shape,  hurried  across 
the  bleak  space,  along  the  winding  asphalt,  walk- 


THE  MIDGE.  57 

ing  over  the  Potter's  Field  of  the  past,  on  their 
way  to  Potter's  Fields  to  be. 

He  had  staid  at  the  brasserie  longer  than  was 
his  wont,  having  this  night  a  dull  dread  of  the 
lonely  hour  before  bed-time,  to  be  spent  in  his 
green  reps  chair ;  of  the  dim  anthracite  fire,  of  the 
encompassing  silence. 

He  heard  his  great  key  click  in  the  lock  of  the 
outer  door,  and  the  sound  was  peculiarly  de 
pressing.  He  cut  short  a  sigh,  set  his  teeth,  and 
smiled  a  grim  smile  as  he  toiled  up  the  long 
stairs  through  the  dead  darkness.  At  the  top 
of  his  own  flight  a  cold,  faint  half-light  filtered 
down  from  the  skylight  of  the  little  old-fash 
ioned  dome  that  rose  above  the  stairway,  built 
through  the  story  above.  By  this  dull  grayness 
he  was  able  to  see  two  bundles,  a  small  one,  and 
one  comparatively  larger,  lying  in  front  of  his 
door.  As  he  approached,  the  larger  bundle 
stood  up.  The  Doctor  started  in  surprise. 

"  C  'est  moi,"  said  the  figure,  which  scarcely 
reached  above  the  handle  of  the  door. 

"  What  ?  "  demanded  the  Doctor. 

"  C'est  moi,"  the  figure  repeated,  in  a  tone  of 
perfectly  satisfying  explanation ;  and  as  she  tried 
to  struggle  out  of  the  folds  of  an  enormous 
water-proof  cloak,  the  Doctor  realized  that  it 
was  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot. 

"  C'est  moi,"  she  said. 


CHAPTER  V. 

«  TXT"  HAT  is  the  matter?"  asked  the  Doc- 
V  V     tor,  falling  back  on  the  stock  question 
which  is  the  Anglo-Saxon's  refuge  in  all  cases 
of  bewilderment,  mystery  or  surprise. 

"  There  is  nothing  is  the  matter,"  returned  the 
girl,  with  composure. 

"What  do  you  want?" 

"  I  want  to  enter." 

She  pointed  to  the  door,  her  white  finger  just 
emerging  from  the  folds  of  the  waterproof.  The 
Doctor  unlocked  his  portal ;  she  gathered  up  her 
small  bundle  and  walked  in.  He  followed  her, 
leaving  the  door  open.  Within,  the  gas  burned 
low,  and  as  he  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets, 
stooping  to  look  into  her  pale,  small  face,  her 
meagre  proportions  seemed  to  him  more  meagre 
still.  She  looked  up  at  him  with  an  anxious  ques 
tion  in  her  eyes,  and  he  stared  blankly  at  her. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  at  last,  "  I  don't  want  to  seem 
inhospitable  in  any  way,  but  if  you'll  kindly  ex 
plain—" 

"  I  cannot  stay  with  those  Goubaud,"  she  said, 
with  sudden  agitation. 
58 


THE  MIDGE. 


59 


"Have  they  been  treating  you  ill?"  The 
Doctor's  gray  eyes  began  to  light  up. 

"  No — not  that.  They  do  not  mean  to  be  bad. 
But  they  are  different.  They  are  not — how  you 
say  it  ? — they  are  not  like  we  others.  La  Goubaud, 
she  say  to  me  this  morning :  '  Go  out.  Play 
with  the  children.  You  get  not  your  mother 
back,  whether  or  no  you  are  sulky.  Sois  sage. 
Play  with  the  children.' "  Her  voice  broke  with 
an  angry  sob.  "  Me !  Play  with  the  children  !  " 
There  was  a  woman's  scorn  in  her  tone.  "  Play 
my  mother  come  back,  perhaps  ?  Make  pretense 
she  was  not  dead  ?  She  treats  me  in  infant.  I 
cannot  bear  it,  monsieur.  You  comprehend  ?  I 
cannot  bear  it." 

The  Doctor  stood  gazing  at  her  in  puzzled 
hopelessness. 

"  I  run  away  to  you.  I  pack  up  my  things  in 
this  bag.  The  bag  belong  to  la  Goubaud.  I 
take  it  back  to-morrow.  Alphonsine,  she  is 
bete,  but  she  is  good ;  she  lend  me  her  water 
proof — see  ?  so  I  run  away  to  you." 

She  had  got  clear  of  the  great  garment  by  this 
time,  and  she  shook  it  to  the  floor,  and  stood 
out,  thinner  and  smaller  than  ever. 

"  But,  my  dear  child,"  the  Doctor  began  :  "you 
can't  stay  here,  you  know — " 

"  Yes !  let  me  stay  here.  You  will  not  send 
me  away  ?  "  She  clasped  her  hands,  together, 
nervously,  as  she  stood  in  front  of  him,  her 


6o  THE  MIDGE. 

anxious,  eager  eyes  searching  his  face,  her  mouth 
witching  painfully.  "  You  will  let  me  stay,  mon 
sieur.  It  is  a  so  short  time!  And  I  shall  die 
there  " — with  a  little  shudder :  "  I  tell  you,  /  die 
there.  You  let  me  stay.  I  make  myself  useful. 
I  know  much,  monsieur  ;  I  cook,  I  keep  the  place 
clean,  I  sew  your  clothes.  I  do  all  that  for  my 
parents,  when  they  have  been  alive.  I  take  care 
of  you  when  you  are  sick.  I  am  good  nurse — 
very  good  nurse.  You  are  sick  sometimes,  eh  ?  " 

She  made  the  inquiry  with  painful  eagerness. 
He  smiled  as  he  slowly  shook  his  head  ;  and  her 
face  fell. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  she  said,  simply ;  and  then  she 
beamed  with  sudden  hope. 

"  I  cook  for  you.  You  do  not  know  how  good 
I  cook.  Alphonsine,  she  tell  me  you  live  all 
alone ;  maybe  you  want  a  cook.  Very  well.  I 
be  your  cook.  Yes,  I  am  small,  I  know;  but 
you  see  I  know  how  to  cook — I  promise  you. 
I  make  you  omelette  aux  confitures,  same  I  used 
to  make  for  my  father.  You  ever  eat  omelette 
aux  confitures  ?" 

The  Doctor  pulled  himself  together. 

"Look  here,"  he  said ;  " I  want  to  have  a  talk 
with  you." 

"  No  !  "  she  cried,  imperatively,  seized  with  a 
quick  mistrust,  "  I  do  not  want  that  you  have  a 
talk  with  me.  You  mean  to  tell  me  to  go  back 
to  la  Goubaud,  eh  ?  " 


THE  MIDGE.  fa 

"  No,  I  don't." 

"  You  let  me  stay  here — with  you  ?  "  she  be 
gan  again,  coaxingly,  with  wide,  brightening 
eyes.  "  Just  a  little  time — to  try  ?  If  I  am  not 
good,  you  send  me  back." 

The  Doctor  gave  vent  to  a  husky  exclamation 
that  sounded  like  profanity. 

"  Come  here,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hands. 

"  No,"  she  insisted :  "  you  tell  me  what  you 
do!" 

He  turned  and  shut  the  door,  and  the  child 
promptly  walked  up  to  him  and  placed  two  cold 
hands  in  his.  He  led  her  to  the  arm-chair,  and 
sat  down  and  made  her  stand  in  front  of  him, 
while  he  inspected  her  with  curious  interest. 
Her  eyes  were  old;  but  her  face,  in  spite  of  its 
thinness  and  pallor,  had  a  certain  almost  babyish 
prettiness  about  it,  sensitive  and  delicate.  There 
was  enough  of  the  mother's  look  in  it  to  give 
promise  of  greater  beauty.  And  through  all  her 
grief  and  anxiety,  he  could  see  traces  of  an  ex 
pression  of  sweet,  winsome,  childish  wilfulness, 
which  suggested  the  innocent  and  instinctive 
coquetry  of  a  kitten.  Her  hair,  thick,  dark, 
soft  and  wavy — the  mother's  hair — hung  heavily 
around  her  face  and  down  her  back,  and  against 
it  he  saw  her  sallow,  thin  neck,  with  its  tense 
cords.  A  scanty  ruffle  of  cheap  lace  hung 
loosely  about  her  throat ;  and  he  noticed  her  nar 
row  chest,  made  yet  narrower  by  the  pleats  of 


62  THE  MIDGE. 

her  shabby  black  frock.  He  looked  hard  at  her, 
and  she  looked  hard  at  him,  and  he  saw  that 
she  was  unmistakably  in  earnest. 

"  You  shan't  go  back  to  Goubaud's,  I  promise 
you  that,"  he  said  at  last :  "  and  you  shan't  go 
anywhere  where  you  don't  want  to  go.  But  as 
for  staying  here — well,  I  don't  think  that  can  be 
managed.  I'm  a  young  bachelor,  you  see,  and 
I'm  afraid  it  wouldn't  be — proper." 

She  knit  her  brows. 

"  I  did  not  think  of  that.  But  then,  you  are 
not  young.  You  are  not  old,  old — but  you  are 
not  young."  Then,  with  a  sudden  illumination  : 
"  But  if  I  am  your  cook,  it  is  proper,  A  cook 
— that  is  convenable,  monsieur." 

"  But  I  have  a  cook.  At  least," — he  corrected 
himself, — "  she's  a  kind  of  a  cook." 

"  She  cooks  bad  ?    Very  bad  ?  " 

"  I  guess  that's  about  the  size  of  it." 

"  Well !  "  she  solved  the  problem  with  a  defini 
tive  shrug  of  her  shoulders,  "  send  her  away. 
Take  me.  You  do  not  believe  I  can  cook  ?  I 
cook  you  a  supper — now!" 

"  I  haven't  the  slightest  doubt  of  your  powers 
as  a  cook,"  laughed  the  Doctor:  "but  if  I  dis 
charge  Luise,  what  am  I  going  to  do  when  you 
leave  me?  You'll  have  to  go  to  your  uncle  in  a 
few  weeks." 

She  settled  that  question  with  the  same  promp 
titude  and  ease. 


THE  MIDGE.  63 

"  I  don't  go  to  my  uncle,  then.  I  don't  care. 
It  is  all  the  same.  I  stay  here  with  you." 

"  But  your  uncle  will  have  something  to  say 
about  that." 

"  He  don't  care,  either,  I  guess.  If  he  take 
me,  I  cost  him  money.  He  don't  like  that  people 
cost  him  money.  He  let  me  stay  here  if  you 
say  so." 

"  Well,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  we'll  see  about  it. 
I  don't  doubt  that  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  your 
cooking;  but  perhaps  you  won't  like  the  place 
yourself." 

She  shook  her  head  wisely. 

" That  is  all  right.     I  like  it.    Then  I  stay?" 

"  You've  got  to  stay  for  to-night,  sure.  I 
shouldn't  know  what  to  do  with  you,  at  this 
hour.  And  now  I  don't  know  where  to  put 
you." 

"  I  go  in  the  cook's  room." 

The  Doctor  laughed  aloud. 

"  I  guess  not.  There's  no  bed  there,  and  it's 
colder  than  seventeen  north  poles  stood  on  end. 
You'd  freeze  to  death  there ;  and  you're  cold 
enough  already.  Here,  sit  down  here  and  warm 
yourself  while  I  see  where  to  stow  you." 

He  got  up  and  slipped  the  child  into  his 
place.  Then  he  stirred  the  fire  into  life,  and  put 
her  feet  on  the  fender,  first  taking  off  her  shoes, 
which  were  worn  to  such  an  extent  that  they 
were  both  picturesque  and  pathetic. 


64  THE  MIDGE. 

"Now  you  stay  there  and  warm  yourself,  and 
I'll  see  about  quarters.  Great  Scott!"  he  said, 
as  he  held  up  the  shoes,  "if  you're  going  to  be 
my  cook  you've  got  to  get  a  new  pair  of  those 
things,  for  the  credit  of  the  establishment." 

If  he  had  not  been  bending  down  when  he  re 
moved  her  shoes,  he  would  have  seen  that  she 
colored  painfully.  He  saw  the  color  deepening 
now,  and  he  wished  he  had  not  spoken.  "Well," 
he  went  on,  rather  awkwardly,  "  I  don't  suppose 
you  could  have  known  that  I  made  it  a  point  to 
be  particular  about  my  cook's  shoes — just  a  sort 
of  a  way  I  have.  Now,  let's  see.  I  guess  I  can 
make  you  comfortable  for  the  night,  somehow  or 
other.  This  is  your  traveling-bag?"  he  asked, 
lifting  the  blue  ticking  sack  that  she  had  brought 
with  her.  "Well,  when  I  was  down  South,  the 
boys  called  me  '  Potato-bag  Peters,'  one  time,  be 
cause  I  had  to  tote  my  traps  around  in  an  old 
potato-sack.  Just  as  good,  you  know,  as  a  fancy 
satchel,  and  holds  a  lot  more.  Have  you  got 
your  what-you-may-call-'em  in  here?" 

"My—?" 

"Your — ah — your  night  things,  whatever  they 
are,"  he  explained,  hastily  and  uncomfortably. 

The  red  on  the  child's  face  mounted  to  the 
roots  of  her  hair. 

"N — n — "  she  began,  and  then  finished  reso 
lutely — "Yes!" 

He  felt  himself  rebuked,  and  he  grew  nearly  as 


THE  MIDGE.  65 

red  as  the  forlorn,  poverty-stricken  waif  in  his 
easy  chair.  It  was  ridiculous  for  a  veteran  of 
the  Doctor's  age  to  flush  up  like  a  school-girl; 
but  he  did  it  now  and  then,  and  was  always 
ashamed  of  it. 

He  moved  about  in  silence  for  a  minute  or  two, 
looking  for  extra  bed-clothes  to  put  on  the  big 
horse-hair  sofa  in  the  corner — the  one  relic  of  the 
Oneida  homestead  which  he  possessed.  From 
the  depths  of  a  dark  closet  his  guest  heard  him, 
after  a  while,  calling  down  the  vengeance  of 
heaven  upon  the  head  of  Luise;  but  in  the  end 
he  found  the  mislaid  drapery,  and  emerged  with 
his  burden.  The  child  leaped  to  her  feet,  and, 
after  one  rueful  glance  at  the  two  pink  toes  that 
peeped  from  her  black  stockings,  pattered  across 
the  floor  to  him,  and  took  the  bed-clothes  in 
charge  as  he  dropped  them  on  the  floor. 

" It  is  for  me"  she  said,  with  feminine  superi 
ority:  "you  do  not  know  how." 

He  had  to  stand  aside,  even  his  assistance 
scorned,  as  she  rapidly  and  neatly  made  up  a  bed 
on  the  sofa.  Her  easy  adaptation  of  the  means 
to  the  end  gave  the  impression  of  a  thorough 
acquaintance  with  the  exigencies  of  poverty  in 
the  matter  of  "  shake-downs." 

It  was  all  done  before  the  Doctor  could  have 

got  one  sheet  stretched  evenly,  and  then  she  gave 

the  completed  work  the  two  little  pats  and  the 

smoothing   stroke  with  which  the  true  woman 

5 


66  THE  MIDGE. 

always  polishes  off  her  bed-making.  She  turned 
to  the  Doctor,  and  he  nodded  approbation. 

"  Now,  young  woman,"  he  inquired,  beginning 
to  feel  a  certain  familiarity  with  his  new  acquaint 
ance,  "do  you  suppose  you  could  eat  some 
crackers  and  cheese  before  you  turn  in?" 

Again  a  hint  of  painful  color  crept  into  her 
wan  face;  but  this  time  she  looked  him  in  the 
eye,  and  said  that  she  could  eat  some  crackers 
and  cheese. 

She  did  eat  some  crackers  and  cheese — a  great 
many  crackers  and  a  great  deal  of  cheese,  in  a 
way  that  showed  that  she  was  hungry.  The 
Doctor  went  up-stairs  in  the  dark,  and  found 
some  milk  in  the  ice-box — Luise  had  never  been 
able  to  see  any  good  reason  why  milk  should  be 
fresh,  when  freshness  involved  going  out  in  the 
early  morning  and  getting  a  new  supply — and 
he  brought  it  down,  and  his  guest  made  quite  a 
fair  supper,  sitting  perched  up  in  the  big  green 
reps  chair,  with  her  feet  to  the  fire,  the  bare  toes 
that  protruded  from  the  black  stockings  occasion 
ally  drawing  themselves  up  in  modest  conscious 
ness  of  their  unconventional  nudity. 

But  in  the  middle  of  it  all  she  broke  down,  and 
choked  on  a  drink  of  milk,  and  burst  into  a  pas 
sion  of  tears,  crying :  "  O  ma  mere,  ma  mere — O 
ma  pauvre  petite  mere ! "  The  Doctor  went  to 
her  side,  and  she  threw  her  arms  about  him,  but 
instantly  pushed  him  away,  and  fumbled  for  her 


THE  MIDGE. 


67 


pocket,  and  found  a  poor  little  ball  of  a  handker 
chief,  with  which  she  mopped  up  her  tears.  Her 
breast  heaved  still,  and  her  breath  was  tremulous ; 
but  she  tried  to  take  up  her  talk  where  she  had  left 
it.  She  had  been  telling  him  about  her  abilities  as 
a  cook,  and  she  endeavored  to  go  on  and  en 
lighten  him  about  a  certain  Francois  in  a  hotel 
at  Biarritz,  who  had  taught  her  to  make  a  mar 
velous  tisane  for  the  sick.  She  had  lost  the 
thread  of  her  narrative,  however,  and  the  Doctor 
felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  keep  up  his  end 
of  the  conversation. 

So  he  told  her  about  some  amateur  cooking 
he  had  done  in  war-times — he  was  not  in  the 
habit  of  talking  of  war-times ;  but  he  was  short 
of  a  subject — and  he  dilated  on  his  enjoyment 
of  a  certain  sandwich  or  stratified  structure  of 
crackers,  pork,  molasses  and  smoked  beef,  until 
her  feminine  horror  at  the  unholy  fare  filled  her 
young  mind  to  the  exclusion  of  deeper  emotions. 

Then  he  suggested  that  It  was  time  to  go  to 
bed,  and  he  made  a  move  to  carry  her  bag  into 
his  room.  But  she  would  not  hear  of  the  ar 
rangement.  Her  protest  was  vehement,  decided, 
and  in  the  end  it  was  successful.  She  would 
sleep  on  the  sofa,  and  the  Doctor  should  sleep  in 
his  own  bed.  And  when  the  argument  closed, 
the  Doctor  felt  himself  dismissed  from  the  room. 
She  did  not  express  herself  in  words;  but  there 
was  in  her  manner  a  distinct  feminine  intimation 


68  THE  MIDGE. 

that  his  further  lingering  would  be  in  bad  taste. 
Conquered  and  embarrassed,  he  retreated. 

But  a  couple  of  hours  later  he  got  up,  slipped 
into  his  old  red-flannel  dressing-gown,  and  stole 
into  the  sitting-room  to  see  if  his  charge  was 
asleep.  He  only  went  near  enough  to  the  couch 
to  hear  her  regular,  soft  breathing,  and  then  he 
tip-toed  back,  turning  hurriedly  into  his  own 
room,  as  though  he  felt  that  his  presence  profaned 
the  innocent  maiden  slumber  that  was  a  strange 
new  thing  under  his  roof. 

#  #  *  #  # 

He  woke  the  next  morning  with  a  glad,  fool 
ishly,  expectant  feeling  which  he  could  not  have 
explained  to  himself.  He  remembered,  though, 
a  similar  sensation  when  the  winter  dawn  looked 
into  his  narrow  attic  room,  in  the  days  of  his 
boyhood,  and  reminded  him  that  singing-school 
was  to  be  held  that  night,  and  that  he  should 
probably  see  Alida  Jansen  home. 

Ten  minutes  later,  as  he  was  taking  his  morn 
ing  dip  in  the  bath-room  at  the  rear  of  the  hall, 
he  heard  a  sound  of  violent  contention  coming 
from  the  regions  above.  He  paused  knee-deep 
in  the  water  and  listened.  One  voice  was  unques 
tionably  that  of  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt 
Talbot.  The  other  was  what  the  voice  of  Luise 
might  be,  raised  to  the  nth  of  dissonance  by 
extreme  rage.  He  had  stepped  softly  past  the 
closed  door  of  his  sitting-room,  as  he  went  to 


THE  MIDGE. 


69 


his  bath,  for  fear  of  waking  the  sleeping  child ; 
but  it  seemed  that  the  child  was  not  sleeping. 
He  huddled  on  some  clothes  and  hurried  up 
stairs,  appearing  in  the  kitchen  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
to  act  as  mediator  in  a  combat  that  was  growing 
fiercer  each  moment. 

The  small  usurper  was  in  position  of  vantage, 
her  back  to  the  range,  her  feet  wide  apart,  planted 
firmly  on  the  hearthstone,  her  left  hand  grasping 
a  frying-pan,  while  her  right  gesticulated  freely. 
She  was  talking  with  a  fiery  volubility  and  a 
command  of  language — such  language  as  it  was 
— that  for  the  moment  had  silenced  old  Luise. 

"  Imbecile  of  a  German — bete  !  idiot !  va !  If  I 
knew  to  use  your  language  for  the  beasts,  I 
would  tell  you  what  you  are.  Go,  I  tell  you ! 
Nobody  want  you  here.  You  are  dis-s-s-charged ! 
You  have  no  ears  then,  you  insane,  that  you 
stand  there  and  mock  yourself  of  me  ?  Go,  then  ! 
get  yourself  out,  or  I  forget  myself — j '  te  dirai  des 
injures,  you  hear  me  !  You  are  no  more  cook — 
I  am  cook — "  here  she  caught  sight  of  the 
Doctor.  "  Tell  her  she  is  no  more  cook.  She 
will  not  go.  Tell  her  she  shall  go.  Tell  her  in 
her  ac-cur-sed  tongue  !  " 

"  Ah  !  "  gasped  the  Doctor,  himself  appalled 
by  this  vigor  of  utterance,  and  too  much  taken 
aback  to  remember  that  maudite  gains  strength 
when  translated  by  "  accursed." 

"  Am  I  not  your  cook,  eh  ?     You  engage  me 


7Q  THE  MIDGE. 

last  night,  eh  !  Then  tell  her  that  she  shall  go. 
Imbecile  " —  this  triumphantly  to  Luise — "  tu  vas 
voir." 

The  light  of  a  great  and  beautiful  possibility 
broke  upon  the  Doctor's  mind.  Here  was  his 
chance,  his  heaven-sent  chance,  of  getting  rid  of 
Luise  forever.  It  would  be  flying  in  the  face  of 
Providence  to  neglect  it.  He  chastened  a  broad 
grin  to  a  pleasantly  humorous  smile,  and  said 
placidly : 

"  Yes,  that's  so.  Sorry  for  this  little  misun 
derstanding  ;  but  it's  a  fact,  Luise.  This  young 
lady — I  mean,  this  is  my  new  cook.  I  ought  to 
have  told  you  before  that  I  was  thinking  of 
changing;  but  she  arrived,  rather  unexpectedly, 
and—" 

"  Dot  chi-yilt?  "  Luise  shrieked. 

"  That  young  woman,  yes.  Of  course,  I  ought 
to  have  given  you  a  month's  warning;  but  I 
guess  we  can  make  it  even  with  a  month's  cash 
— how'll  that  do  ?  Sorry  to  lose  you,  Luise ;  but 
the  fact  is,  I've  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I 
like  younger  cooking — see?  Suppose  you  call 
on  me  to-night,  and  I'll  settle  accounts  with 
you  ?  We'll  make  it  all  satisfactory,  somehow, 
Luise,"  he  finished,  feeling  his  heart  begin  to  fail 
him. 

The  successful  combatant  in  front  of  the  fire 
gave  her  frying-pan  an  airy  twirl  of  victory,  and 
set  it  down  on  the  stove  with  a  slam.  "  N-i,  ni," 


THE  MIDGE.  7! 

she  said  :  "  c'est  fini ! "  and  she  folded  her  hands 
on  her  apron,  waiting  for  her  rival  to  depart. 

Luise  stood  one  stricken  moment  speechless, 
and  then  she  turned  and  cluttered  to  the  door. 
As  she  grasped  the  post  and  swung  herself  out, 
she  turned  to  level  a  threatening  ringer  at  the 
Doctor. 

"  I  kess  you  goin'  crazy ! "  she  hissed,  and 
she  disappeared. 

Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot  gazed  at 
the  Doctor,  the  flush  of  indignation  fading  from 
her  cheeks.  She  bobbed  her  small  head  signifi 
cantly  and  closed  one  eye  in  the  wink  of  fellow 
ship. 

"  Good,"  she  said  :  "  no  more  Luise !" 

"  But  how  about  my  breakfast  ?  "  demanded 
the  Doctor. 

"  Your  breakfast,"  she  replied,  looking  at  the 
clock  :  "  it  will  be  ready  in  fifteen  minutes — if 
you  go  down  stairs,"  she  added,  severely.  "  You 
go  down  stairs,  you  put  on  your  coat,  you  read 
your  journal — you  brush  your  hair,  perhaps  " — 
with  a  quick  glance  at  the  top  of  his  head — "and 
I  come  with  the  breakfast  before  you  are  ready." 

He  departed  submissively  and  finished  his 
dressing.  The  fifteen  minutes  had  spread  out  to 
twenty,  and  he  was  just  taking  down  his  pipe  to 
stay  his  stomach  with  nicotine,  when  he  heard  a 
fumbling  at  the  door-knob.  He  put  the  pipe 
away  guiltily,  and  opened  to  his  new  cook,  who 


»2  THE  MIDGE. 

was  nearly  hidden  behind  the  loaded  breakfast- 
tray. 

She  permitted  him  to  set  it  on  the  floor,  and 
then  she  made  him  stand  aside  while  she  set  the 
table.  When  the  board  was  spread,  he  gravely 
invited  her  to  a  seat,  and,  after  a  moment's  hesi 
tation,  in  which  she  glanced  with  hungry  eyes  at 
the  work  of  her  hands,  she  graciously  accepted, 
and,  climbing  into  a  chair  opposite  her  host,  she 
named  over  the  edibles,  not  as  Luise  had  of  old ; 
but  with  the  gusto  of  an  artist. 

She  had  not  boasted  vainly.  There  was  an 
omelette,  golden,  light  and  tender  ;  there  were  a 
few  bits  of  crisp  bacon ;  there  was  a  bunch  of 
radishes  coyly  tucked  in  a  napkin  folded  to 
simulate  a  rose ;  there  was  a  little  pile  of  anchovy 
toast,  and  there  was  a  pot  of  coffee,  clear  and 
strong,  such  as  the  Doctor  had  not  tasted  in 
many  a  morning. 

"  I  kept  you  waiting  a  little,"  she  said,  apolo 
getically  :  "and  it  is  not  all  as  I  would  like;  but 
it  is  not  my  fault.  That  Luise,  she  is — how  you 
say  ? — untidy.  She  puts  the  things  allwheres 
and  nowheres." 

The  Doctor  assured  her  that  he  was  perfectly 
satisfied,  and  he  proved  it  by  his  attention  to  the 
repast.  But  as  he  ate,  it  slowly  dawned  on  his 
man's  mind  that  the  delicacies  before  him  were 
not  usually  among  the  provisions  of  the  unin- 
ventive  Luise. 


.THE  MIDGE.  73 

"  Where  did  you  get  these — these  extras  ?  "  he 
inquired,  indicating  them  with  a  comprehensive 
sweep  of  his  hand. 

"  I  got  up  and  went  out  and  got  them  before 
you  were  awake,"  she  answered,  proudly :  "  I 
got  them  at  Breitenbach,  the  grocery  around  the 
corner." 

"  But  I  haven't  an  account  there !  "  he  said,  in 
dismay. 

"  No,  I  know.  But  I  did  not  know  what  was 
your  place,  and  they  knew  you  there.  They 
would  not  believe  me  that  I  came  from  you,  and 
they  would  send  a  German  boy  with  me  back, 
but  when  he  came  here,  he  has  seen  that  it  was 
all  right,  and  he  has  left  the  things.  You  can 
pay,  can  you  not  ?  he  will  give  credit." 

The  Doctor  suppressed  his  comments  on  this 
revelation.  "And,  that?"  he  further  inquired, 
pointing  to  the  butter-dish.  It  was  ingeniously 
swaddled  in  a  napkin,  and  from  one  corner  of 
the  napkin  peeped  a  large  carnation-pink.  She 
blushed  a  little,  and  smiled  knowingly.  "Oh, 
that,"  she  said ;  "  I  got  that  from  the  boy.  He 
had  it  in  his  button-hole ;  so  I  was  very  nice  with 
him,  and  I  asked  him  for  it,  and  he  has  given  it 
to  me.  One  flower,  even,"  she  explained;  "it  is 
so  good  on  the  table.  It  gives  the  appetite." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

«  T  THINK,"  said  the  Doctor,  an  hour  later, 

1  when  he  had  read  his  paper  and  meditated 
over  his  pipe,  while  his  new  aid  washed  the 
breakfast-things,  and  made  his  bed  and  dusted 
the  rooms,  "  I  rather  think  that  I'll  do  the  mar 
keting  while  you're  in  charge  of  the  establish 
ment.  You  can  tell  me  what  you  want,  and  I'll 
get  it.  It's  more  in  my  line,  anyway,  and  it 
strikes  me  that — that  I'm  a  little  more  up  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  situation." 

This  last  phrase  evidently  exerted  on  his 
hearer's  mind  the  influence  of  the  mysterious 
and  incomprehensible.  She  gave  it  deliberate 
consideration,  and  finally  felt  herself  safe  in  assent 
ing.  Perhaps,  she  admitted,  it  would  be  better. 

They  proceeded  to  lay  out  a  dinner,  which 
impressed  the  Doctor  as  being  of  dangerously 
large  proportions.  It  began  with  bouillon,  went 
on  with  fried  smelts,  rose  to  the  height  of  a  cut 
let,  and  passed  to  coffee  and  cheese,  through  an 
omelette  soiiffle.  The  plan  also  involved  the  in 
troduction  of  various  vegetables. 

It  was  arranged  that  the  Doctor  was  not  to  be 
74 


THE  MIDGE.  75 

home  to  luncheon,  whereat  the  new  cook  was 
pleased.  She  acknowledged  that  if  there  was 
one  weak  spot  in  her  culinary  education,  it  was 
in  the  matter  of  luncheon.  She  kindly  explained 
that  the  French  system  of  late  breakfasting  ren 
dered  luncheon  unnecessary,  and  she  seemed 
disposed  to  dwell  on  the  superiority  of  that  plan 
until  she  found  her  American  friend  hopelessly 
unresponsive. 

His  list  having  been  made  out,  the  Doctor 
took  M.  Goubaud's  sack  and  Alphonsine's  water 
proof,  and  set  out.  He  stopped  at  Breitenbach's 
to  settle  his  bill  and  dash  the  hopes  of  Breiten- 
bach,  who  would  have  been  more  than  glad  to 
write  Dr.  Peters's  name  on  his  books.  He  saw 
Mme.  Goubaud,  who  grumbled  sourly  at  the 
flight  of  her  boarder,  even  after  the  Doctor  had 
paid  the  price  of  three  weeks'  board  for  Miss 
Talbot,  out  of  his  own  pocket.  He  also  found 
means  of  surreptitiously  returning  her  cloak  to 
Alphonsine,  with  a  little  cash  compensation  for 
her  kindness  to  the  child.  And,  when  all  this 
was  done,  he  went  off  to  see  his  friend  at  the 
rooms  of  the  Benevolent  Society. 

The  little  secretary  took  a  gloomy  view  of  the 
young  lady's  contumacy.  He  did  not  see  how 
the  Society  could  countenance  such  independent 
action  on  the  part  of  one  of  its  wards.  It  was 
irregular  and  improper,  and  he  thoroughly  disap 
proved  of  it. 


76  THE  MIDGE. 

"  We've  got  to  do  something  with  her,  all  the 
same,  Peloubet,"  said  the  Doctor.  "  She  can't 
stay  with  me,  and  she  won't  stay  at  Goubaud's, 
and  she  oughtn't  to." 

"  W'y  can  she  not  stay  wiz  you  ? "  inquired 
Peloubet,  in  extravagant  protest :  "  you  'ave  a 
grand  apar-r-rtment — you  ar-r-r  so  reech  you 
don'  know  w'at  to  do  wiz  your  monnee — w'y 
can  she  not  stay  wiz  you  ?  " 

"  Great  Scott,  Peloubet — I  can't  have  a  child 
in  my  place,  there — especially  a  child  of  that 
peculiar  sex." 

"  Bah  !  It  is  but  two— t'ree  wicks.  She  is  your 
niece;  she  is  come  to  *mek  you  a  visit.  You 
ar-r-r  old  enough  to  be  an  uncle,  eh?" 

"  I'm  old  enough  to  be  most  anything,  I  sup 
pose,"  returned  the  Doctor,  with  a  rather  grim 
smile ;  "  but  I'm  not  the  uncle  of  the  whole 
Benevolent  Society.  There's  no  two  ways  about 
it.  I  got  you  into  this  scrape,  and  I'll  take  what 
ever  trouble  there  is  to  be  taken  ;  but  I've  got  to 
find  some  decent  woman  to  look  after  the  child, 
and  it  must  be  done  with  the  sanction  of  the 
Society.  It's  all  the  same  to  you  to  whom  you 
pay  her  board.  It  must  be  done,  and  it'll  have 
to  be  done  right  off.  If  that  infant  settles  her 
self  down  in  my  quarters  much  more  firmly,  I 
shan't  be  able  to  get  her  out  with  an  ox-chain." 

"  Bot  she  mos'  go  w'ere  we  send  her,"  said  the 
Secretary. 


THE  MIDGE.  jj 

"  But  she  won't,  if  she  don't  feel  like  it." 

"  You  mos'  mek  her  go." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  should  want  to 
make  her  go,  if  she  stayed  any  longer,"  said  the 
Doctor,  half  to  himself.  Then  he  got  up  to  depart. 

"  All  right,  Peloubet,  I'll  hunt  around  and  find 
a  place  for  her,  and  then  I'll  report  to  you,  and 
if  it's  satisfactory,  we'll  transfer  the  young  woman 
after  dinner.  I  expect  she'll  break  her  heart  if 
she  isn't  allowed  to  cook  that  dinner."  He  had 
told  the  Secretary  of  the  child's  fancy  that  she 
could  be  the  cook  in  his  bachelor  establishment. 

Dr.  Peters  spent  the  rest  of  the  daylight  in 
g  twofold  search — looking  for  a  temporary  home 
for  his  charge,  and  also  for  a  cook  for  himself. 
Mme.  Pigault  finally  helped  him  out  of  both  of 
his  difficultfes.  Her  sister,  in  Harlem,  would 
take  the  child  to  board — her  sister  was  a  milli 
ner,  and  the  place  would  be  better  for  the  little 
one  than  here  where  there  were  so  many  men 
forever  coming  and  going — nice,  respectable 
men  they  were  ;  but,  enfin,  men.  And  she  knew 
of  a  cook,  did  Mme.  Pigault,  a  certain  Elise,  a 
French  Alsatian,  who  was  all  that  there  was  of 
most  perfect  in  the  way  of  a  cook. 

These  things  being  off  his  mind,  the  Doctor 
went  home.  Lodoiska  Agnes  looked  down  on 
him  from  the  top  of  the  kitchen  stairway,  and 
told  him  that  dinner  would  be  ready  at  six,  and 
that  she  had  caught  a  mouse  in  the  trap,  and  had 


78  THE   MIDGE. 

let  him  go  again.  It  was  only  five,  so  he  took 
off  his  coat  and  went  to  filing  away  in  his  work 
room,  where  a  little  light  still  lingered.  It  was 
the  large  back-room,  looking  out  on  two  vacant 
lots,  that  stretched  through  to  Third  Street.  In 
the  summer  time  there  was  no  pleasanter  room 
in  all  that  quarter ;  for  the  yards  were  green  and 
bright,  and  a  beautiful  tree  stood  in  one  of  them, 
spreading  and  flourishing  as  fairly  as  if  it  had 
been  miles  out  in  the  country,  and  serving  as 
something  of  a  screen  between  the  house  and 
the  noise  and  ugliness  of  the  newly-built  ele 
vated  railroad.  But  the  room  itself  was  bare 
and  unfurnished,  save  for  the  work-bench  and 
racks  that  held  the  odds  and  ends  of  models  and 
castings.  And  the  outlook  to-day  was  not  over 
cheerful,  for  the  tree  was  stripped  of  its  leaves, 
and  the  trains  went  crashing  by,  their  lighted 
windows  glaring  in  the  twilight. 

He  had  lit  the  gas,  and  was  still  filing  away 
and  whistling  to  himself,  when  his  cook  came  in. 
She  had  been  setting  the  table  in  the  sitting- 
room,  and  she  paid  him  a  brief  visit  to  tell  him 
that  it  was  time  to  get  ready  for  his  dinner. 

She  inquired  into  the  nature  of  his  labors, 
perching  herself  on  the  largest  casting  that 
stood  against  the  wall.  He  told  her  what  he 
was  doing;  and  she  instantly  got  off  the  casting, 
and  expressed  her  disapprobation. 

Why  did  he  wish  to  make  a  cannon,  to  kill 


THE  MIDGE. 


79 


people  ?     It  was  cruel ;  it  was  not  gcntil.     She 
would  not  do  like  that.     She  did  not  like  it. 

Dr.  Peters  explained  that  cannons  were  useful 
in  time  of  war,  when  one's  country  was  attacked ; 
but  she  was  not  satisfied.  Yes,  she  knew  all 
about  that.  The  Prussians,  who,  she  incidently 
remarked,  were  hogs,  had  attacked  France.  She 
did  not  remember  it;  it  was  many  years  ago, 
and  she  was  very  little  then  ;  but  she  had  been 
told  about  it,  and  she  had  seen  the  mischief  they 
had  done.  But,  herself,  she  thought  that  the 
French  were  as  bad  as  the  Prussians.  They  had 
cannons,  too,  and  they  had  used  them,  although 
they  must  have  known  that  it  would  set  fire  to 
their  houses  and  knock  down  the  trees  and  ruin 
everything.  She  did  not  like  cannons  at  all. 
She  had  seen  them  fired,  not  to  kill  people,  of 
course;  but  just  to  pass  the  time.  The  smoke 
and  the  flame  were  very  pretty ;  but  the  noise 
was  not  good.  If  they  could  have  the  smoke 
and  the  flame  without  the  noise — well !  But  for 
killing  people — it  had  not  the  common  sense. 
Why  could  not  he  make  something  else  ? 

What  should  he  make  ?  the  Doctor  asked  her. 
He  was  ready  to  invent  anything  she  desired  ; 
he  didn't  care  particularly  about  cannons.  What 
should  it  be  ?  She  pondered  awhile,  and  then 
suggested  "  something  to  eat." 

This  recalling  her  to  her  duties,  she  took  her 
self  off  upstairs;  and  the  Doctor  made  his 


80  THE  MIDGE. 

simple  toilet  in  preparation  for  dinner.  He 
saw,  when  he  entered  the  sitting-room,  that 
places  were  set  for  two,  from  which  he  concluded 
that  his  new  domestic  was  either  enough  of  a 
democrat,  or  enough  of  an  aristocrat,  to  see  no 
impropriety  in  dining  with  her  employer. 

She  came  down,  presently,  bearing  the  soup- 
tureen,  which  she  placed  in  front  of  the  head  of 
the  house.  She  swung  herself  into  her  chair 
opposite  him,  and  began  a  voluble  discourse  on 
the  demerits  of  the  departed  Luise,  as  shown  in 
the  deplorable  condition  of  the  kitchen  and 
pantry.  The  Doctor  ladled  out  the  bouillon, 
gave  the  culinary  artist  her  plate,  and  then 
stared  hard  at  his  own,  as  he  rilled  it.  He  took 
a  spoonful  and  elevated  it  for  closer  examination. 
It  was  of  a  fine  straw-color,  and  the  pattern  on 
the  bottom  of  the  plate  shone  through  in  un- 
dimmed  blueness.  To  the  taste  the  broth  sug 
gested  faintly  the  flavor  of  beef-tea ;  but  it  gave 
no  hint  of  sustenance. 

The  monologue  on  the  sins  of  Luise  went  on 
across  the  table  ;  but  it  was  less  fluent,  and  there 
were  awkward,  conscious  breaks  in  it.  The  face 
bent  over  the  hot,  thin  decoction  changed  from 
red  to  white  and  back  to  red  again.  The  Doctor 
said  nothing ;  being  painfully  at  a  loss.  Finally 
the  small  face  was  raised,  and  she  addressed  him 
with  a  brave  assumption  of  ease,  while  a  tear 
glistened  in  each  eye. 


THE  MIDGE.  8 1 

"  This  bouillon  is  not  good,  I  don't  think. 
You  find  it  thin,  do  you  not  ?  " 

"Well,"  hazarded  the  Doctor,  "it's  a  little 
that  way,  seems  to  me." 

"  Never  mind.  We  will  not  eat  it.  I  will  take  it 
away.  The  next  time  I  will  make  it  more  strong." 

She  slipped  to  the  ground,  and,  taking  the 
plate  from  him,  gathered  up  her  own  and  the 
soup-tureen,  and  hurried  from  the  room  with 
them,  clearly  desirous  of  getting  them  out  of 
sight  as  soon  as  possible.  When  she  returned 
she  brought  the  smelts.  There  was  a  percepti 
ble  decrease  of  confidence  in  her  manner;  but 
she  became  herself  again  when  it  proved  that 
the  smelts  were  good  beyond  cavil.  They  were 
well  fried ;  they  lay  in  a  clean  napkin,  and  there 
was  a  sprig  of  parsley  so  ingeniously  tucked 
into  each  gaping  mouth  that  it  looked  like  a 
tiny  green  nosegay,  of  which,  and  himself  to 
boot,  the  smelt  was  making  general  tender. 

The  smelts  having  established  their  claim  to 
respect,  it  was  with  unconcealed  pride  that  the 
cook  marched  upstairs  to  get  the  veal  cutlet. 
The  maintenance  of  her  social  as  well  as  her 
domestic  functions  caused  long  waits  between 
the  courses,  but  although  it  was  ten  minutes  be 
fore  her  reappearance,  both  she  and  the  Doctor 
felt  that  the  success  of  the  smelts  justified  her 
in  expecting  the  indulgence  to  be  accorded  to  an 
artist. 


82  THE  MIDGE. 

The  cutlet  was  brown  and  pleasing  to  the  eye. 
A  paper  rose  grew  from  the  island  of  bone  in 
the  middle.  Lodoiska  Agnes  called  her  host's 
attention  to  it,  and  described  the  process  of 
making  paper  roses.  Then  the  Doctor,  his  eyes 
politely  fixed  on  the  person  speaking  to  him, 
cut  into  the  cutlet.  There  was  a  courteous  smile 
of  divided  interest  on  his  face,  but  it  vanished  as 
an  agonized  contortion  swept  over  the  child's 
features,  and  a  cry  of  pain  and  horror  came  from 
her  quivering  lips.  He  glanced  down  where  she 
was  looking,  at  his  knife  and  fork.  He  thought 
that  he  must  have  been  guilty  of  some  hideous 
slip,  and  he  half-expected  to  see  a  severed  finger 
lying  in  the  platter.  But  even  as  he  looked,  the 
girl,  with  a  bitter  cry  of  shame  and  grief,  spread 
out  her  little  hands,  trying  to  hide  the  dish  from 
his  sight.  "  No,  no  ! "  she  wailed :  "  you  shall 
not  see  it !  I  will  not  that  you  shall  see  it !  " 

He  could  not  help  himself;  a  smile  came  on 
his  face.  The  incision  had  disclosed  the  inner 
depths  of  the  cutlet.  The  bread-crumb  crust 
was  browned ;  but  below  was  only  the  hideous, 
livid,  raw  pink  of  uncooked  meat. 

There  was  nothing  but  child  left  in  her  now. 
In  her  utter  humiliation  and  despair,  she  let  him 
take  her  up  in  his  arms  and  kiss  and  console  and 
caress  her  after  a  fatherly  fashion.  She  hid  her 
face  on  his  shoulder,  hanging  to  him  by  the 
lapels  of  his  coat,  and  she  sobbed  and  moaned, 


THE  MIDGE.  83 

and  brokenly  bewailed  her  failure,  and  then  cried 
aloud  for  her  father  and  her  mother. 

He  let  her  have  it  out,  and  when  the  spasmodic 
violence  of  her  distress  had  abated,  he  made  her 
sit  up  on  his  knee  and  listen  to  his  assurances 
that  it  was  all  right;  that  they  could  make  a  very 
good  dinner  without  the  cutlet ;  that  he  didn't 
mind  it  in  the  least,  if  she  didn't.  He  pressed  his 
lips  to  her  hot  cheek,  where  the  salt  tears 
trickled  down  even  while  a  faint,  dim  gleam  of 
hope  once  more  began  to  dawn  in  her  eyes.  He 
smoothed  her  hair,  and  she  dried  her  tears  with 
his  faded  silk  handkerchief,  and  after  a  bit  they 
organized  a  joint  expedition  to  the  kitchen,  where 
the  cutlet  was  stowed  away  under  the  sink,  and 
where  they  made  coffee,  with  which  and  the 
crackers  and  cheese,  they  descended  to  the  sitting- 
room.  The  omelette  souffle  was  postponed  to 
another  occasion;  and  they  got  on  very  well 
without  it,  and  were  surprised  to  find  how  far 
crackers  and  cheese  could  go  as  a  substitute  for 
a  dinner. 

When  it  was  all  finished,  and  the  table  was 
cleared  off,  she  came  readily  to  sit  on  his  lap  as 
he  smoked  his  pipe.  Here  she  fell  into  a  brown 
study,  and,  after  a  couple  of  minutes  of  silence 
she  suddenly  turned  to  him,  put  her  arms  about 
his  neck,  and  kissed  him.  It  was  an  offering  so 
deliberate,  frank  and  sweetly  declarative  of  affec 
tion  that  the  Doctor  blushed.  She  was  chary 


84 


THE  MIDGE. 


of  her  kisses,  he  afterward  found  out;  but  when 
she  gave  them,  she  meant  them. 

But  she  was  quite  willing  now  to  be  kissed, 
and  she  accepted  and  even  invited  petting  with 
the  most  childlike  simplicity.  Like  the  Widow 
Malone,  she  seemed  to  feel  that  submission  to  an 
initial  aggression  involved  and  demanded  full 
surrender.  Her  mature  reserve  had  banished 
with  the  downfall  of  her  dignity;  and  she  put  her 
head  in  the  hollow  of  his  shoulder  and  nestled 
up  to  him  as  though  she  were  six  instead  of 
twelve. 

All  the  time  she  chattered,  telling  him,  in  a 
rambling,  desultory  way,  the  story  of  her  life. 
And  a  queer  story  of  genteel  tramphood  it  was, 
full  of  details  of  curious  shifts  of  poverty,  accounts 
of  strange  lodgings  and  stranger  companion 
ships,  tales  of  friendly  cooks  and  waiters  and  odd 
vagabonds  of  the  father's  profession,  and  tales 
of  unfriendly  landlords  and  hard-hearted  pur 
veyors  of  provisions. 

Incoherent  as  was  her  recital — and  she  stopped 
often  to  cry  quietly  over  her  lost  father  and 
mother — it  was  deeply  interesting  to  the  Doctor. 
It  gave  him  pictures  of  a  life  of  which  he  knew 
little,  and  it  made  comprehensible  to  him  the  odd 
mental  and  moral  development  of  this  little  being 
who  could  not  fairly  be  classed  either  with  chil 
dren  or  with  women. 

The  clock   struck   nine — his    usual    hour  for 


THE  MIDGE.  85 

going  to  Pigault's;  but  he  thought  he  would 
wait  awhile  to-night,  until  it  should  be  time  for 
the  child  to  go  to  bed.  Ten  o'clock  came,  and 
the  little  one  was  still  lying  in  his  arms,  with 
her  head  on  his  shoulder,  and  they  were  talking 
like  old  friends.  For  the  time  being,  her  remi 
niscences  had  come  to  an  end,  and  she  was 
catechizing  him.  She  wanted  to  know  where  he 
had  been,  and  what  he  had  done,  and  he  tried  to 
tell  her,  with  all  the  awkwardness  of  a  man 
who  has  made  it  a  rule  in  life  not  to  talk  about 
himself.  He  told  her  of  the  old  homestead  in 
the  north  of  the  state,  of  his  stern,  precise, 
formal  father,  Doctor  Peters,  the  great  man  of 
their  little  town ;  of  his  mother,  what  little  he 
remembered  of  her;  of  his  simple,  uneventful, 
meagre  boyhood ;  of  his  brief  career  as  a  student 
of  medicine,  and  then  he  came  to  the  War. 

Volunteer  though  he  had  been,  he  was  a 
thorough-going  old  soldier  in  certain  things ;  and 
it  was  not  easy  for  him  to  begin  to  talk  about  the 
War.  But  when  he  did  begin,  he  forgot  himself, 
and  now  he  told  story  after  story,  to  which  the 
child  on  his  lap  listened  in  fascinated  absorption. 
They  were  only  such  stories  of  the  camp  and  field 
as  any  veteran  of  the  great  war  could  tell;  but 
they  had  that  charm  which  lies  in  every  soldier's 
story,  and  his  hearer  forgot  her  dislike  of  cannons 
and  her  feminine  objections  to  the  waste  of 
human  life  in  listening  to  him. 


86  THE  MIDGE. 

He  stopped  suddenly,  ashamed  of  his  enthusi 
astic  freedom  of  speech.  It  was  past  eleven 
o'clock.  He  told  Lodoiska  Agnes  that  she  ought 
to  be  in  bed.  She  looked  somewhat  surprised; 
but  made  no  remonstrance. 

Sliding  down  from  his  knee,  she  stood  a  mo 
ment  in  meditation,  and  then  asked : 

"What  is  it  that  you  want  for  breakfast?" 

Before  she  had  finished  the  question,  the  tears 
of  shame  came  into  her  eyes.  He  gathered  her 
up  again,  and  told  her  that  he  would  like  nothing 
better  than  another  breakfast  just  such  as  she  had 
given  him  that  morning.  He  had  not  had  such 
a  breakfast  in  many  years,  he  declared,  with  the 
convincing  fervor  of  truth,  and  he  did  not  see 
how  it  could  be  improved  upon. 

"I  cannot  cook  for  you,"  she  murmured, 
sadly;  "I  do  not  cook  so  good  as  I  have  thought 
I  could  cook." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "  I'll  tell  you  what  it  is.  I've 
been  thinking  about  this  cooking  business,  and  I 
think  I  see  what  we've  got  to  do.  You're  going 
away  after  a  while,  you  know  " — she  slipped  a 
finger  into  his  button-hole,  and  he  stroked  the 
small  hand  as  it  hung  there — "  and  I  shall  have 
to  get  a  cook  who'll  stay  here.  See  ?  Now  you 
know  all  about  cooking — though  of  course  you 
aren't  just  ready  to  take  hold  of  a  bachelor 
establishment  and  do  all  the  work  yourself — 
'twasn't  to  be  expected  of  you.  So  I  thought 


THE  MIDGE.  8/ 

I'd  engage  a  cook — just  a  plain,  common  cook, 
and  you  could  kind  of  hang  around  and  break 
her  in — oversee  her  and — and — boss  her.  You'd 
be  the  housekeeper,  as  it  were — head  of  the 
establishment,  and  all  that.  I  think  it's  rather 
more  in  your  line.  And  then  you  could  take 
your  meals  with  me,  quiet  and  comfortable. 
What  do  you  think  of  the  scheme?" 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  cried,  her  eyes  dilating,  "  that 
would  be  good." 

"  Yes,"  he  went  on,  "  I've  engaged  the  cook, 
and  she's  coming  to-morrow,  and  you  can  take 
right  hold  and — " 

He  stopped  short.  What  was  he  doing  ?  This 
was  a  pretty  way  to  prepare  her  for  her  transfer 
to  the  milliner's  in  Harlem.  He  had  been  voicing 
a  wild  fancy,  and  he  had  not  realized  how  far  he 
was  going.  She  saw  his  embarrassment 

"Why  do  you  stop?  Go  on." 

"  Well,"  he  began,  feebly,  "  I  was  just  think 
ing—" 

"What?" 

"  Well — you  mightn't  like  the  place." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  she  said  with  decision :  "  I  will  like 
it.  I  would  like  to  stay  with  you.  I  like  you 
better  than  any  one — except — except — " 

He  drew  her  closer  to  him,  in  token  of  un 
derstanding;  but  he  did  not  attempt  to  ac 
count  to  himself  for  a  certain  internal  wincing 
that  he  felt  at  the  clause  of  limitation.  The 


88  THE  MIDGE. 

human  animal  is  naturally  and  healthily  a  jeal 
ous  animal. 

"  It  is  then  omelette  and  anchovy  toast  ?  "  she 
concluded,  considering  the  question  settled.  "  And 
you  like  the  radish  always,  eh  ?  " 

He  felt  pitifully  weak  as  he  assented,  promising 
himself  that  to-morrow  he  would  tell  her  that  she 
must  go  away. 

"  Good-night,"  he  said,  as  he  rose.  She 
frankly  lifted  up  her  mouth  to  be  kissed,  and  as 
he  bent  over  her  he  wished  in  his  soul  that  he 
had  done  his  duty  and  had  it  over.  He  felt 
almost  like  a  traitor  as  he  touched  her  lips, 
thinking  of  what  he  was  hiding  from  her. 

When  he  was  in  his  own  room,  he  sat  down 
on  the  edge  of  his  bed  and  pondered.  What 
was  going  to  happen  to-morrow,  when  he  told 
her  that  she  must  leave  him  ?  She  evidently  had 
no  idea  of  anything  of  the  sort.  Even  the  going 
to  Europe  was  to  her  something  remote,  not 
worthy  of  present  consideration.  His  conscience 
troubled  him.  He  had  done  wrong  in  letting 
her  tie  herself  up  to  him  and  to  this  temporary 
home.  What  would  she  think  of  him  when  he 
sent  her  up  to  the  milliner's  shop  in  Harlem  ? 
And  what  would  she  think  of  the  milliner's 
shop?  He  had  once  seen  Mme.  Pigault's  sister 
— a  busy,  fussy,  common-place  little  French 
woman  ;  not  at  all  like  good  Mme.  Pigault  She 
was  only  a  modified,  improved  and  prosperous 


THE  MIDGE.  89 

Mme.  Goubaud.  He  felt  instinctively  that  the 
child  would  not  like  her. 

Well,  it  was  of  no  use,  his  sitting  there  and 
thinking  it  over.  The  thing  must  be  done  to 
morrow,  and  another  time  he  would  be  more 
careful.  But,  he  reflected,  in  mingled  relief  and 
regret,  he  was  not  likely  another  time  to  encounter 
another  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot. 

He  rose,  and  was  about  to  begin  undressing, 
when  he  noticed  that  his  dressing-gown  was 
missing.  It  always  hung  at  the  foot  of  the  bed ; 
but  he  remembered  that  he  had  left  it  in  the  bath 
room  that  morning  when  he  went  up  to  arbitrate 
the  quarrel  between  his  two  cooks,  and  that  he 
had  subsequently  seen  it  in  the  sitting-room, 
where  Lodoiska  Agnes  had  draped  it  pictur 
esquely  over  the  end  of  the  sofa. 

He  tapped  at  the  door.  There  was  no  answer, 
and  he  opened  it  softly  and  slipped  in.  The  gas 
was  still  burning,  and  there,  before  the  fire,  the 
child  sat  in  his  big  arm-chair,  toasting  her  bare 
feet.  She  was  wrapped  in  the  red  dressing-gown, 
which  stood  out  in  hideous  discord  with  the 
green  reps. 

"Well,  I'll  be— blest!"  exclaimed  the  Doctor; 
"  aren't  you  in  bed  yet  ?  " 

Startled,  she  jumped  down  and  faced  him, 
huddling  the  too  ample  garment  about  her  in  a 
way  that  suggested  a  desire  to  conceal  some 
more  intimate  deficiencies  of  attire. 


QO  THE  MIDGE. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  am  not  fatigued.  I  go  to 
bed  always — twelve,  one  o'clock  sometimes." 

"  Not  here  you  don't,"  the  Doctor  corrected 
her  vigorously :  "  if  you  want  to  stay  here,  you've 
got  to  turn  in  when  the  drum  beats.  Pile  right 
into  bed,  young  woman,  and  leave  that  article  of 
clothing  where  I  can  get  at  it,  or  I'll  have  to  tie 
a  blanket  around  me  to  get  to  my  bath  in  the 
morning." 

She  turned  obediently  to  the  couch,  which  she 
had  already  prepared  for  the  night. 

"  All  right.  You  come  back  in  two  seconds, 
you  find  it  there,  on  the  chair." 

She  waited  for  him  to  go,  but  he  lingered  in  a 
new  perplexity. 

"  I  say,"  he  commenced,  hesitatingly,  "  aren't 
you  in  the  habit — I  suppose  you  are — but — 
don't  you  generally  say  something  before  you  go 
to  bed?" 

"  Say  what  ?  " 

"  Why,  say  a  prayer,  or  something.  Most 
people  do  it — when  they  ain't  grown  up,"  the 
spirit  of  truth  compelled  him  to  add. 

She  opened  her  eyes,  and  shook  her  head. 

"  No — not  me — never." 

"  Didn't  your  mother  teach  you  to  say  your 
prayers  ?  " 

She  shook  her  head  again,  bewildered. 

"  No." 

He  felt  dimly  that  a  moral  responsibility  de- 


THE  MIDGE.  gi 

volved  upon  him,  and  that  he  was  not  quite  up 
to  it,  at  the  moment.  He  turned  away  in  un 
comfortable  irresolution.  She  called  him  back. 

"  You  want  me  to  say  prayers  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Why — yes.    Seems  to  me  it  would  be  better." 

"  All  right,  if  you  want." 

And  in  an  instant  she  had  dropped  on  her 
knees,  the  great  red  dressing-gown  puffing  out 
around  her,  and  before  the  Doctor  could  quite 
grasp  the  situation,  she  had  rattled  through  an 
"  Ave  Maria,  gratia  plena."  Then,  still  on  her 
knees,  she  looked  up  at  him  and  calmly  inquired, 
"  How  many  ?  " 

"That's  enough,"  said  the  Doctor,  and  returned 
to  his  own  room.  "Maybe  it's  too  much,"  he 
reflected.  He  certainly  had  no  idea  of  taking 
her  religious  training  in  hand  ;  but  when  he  fell 
asleep,  a  little  later,  his  brain  was  drowsily  work 
ing  to  reconstruct  the  exact  wording  of  a  simple 
formula  of  his  childhood,  which  had  somehow 
slipped  his  memory  in  the  course  of  years,  and 
which  began : 

"  Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep ; 
I  pray  the  Lord  my  soul  to  keep." 

Yes,  he  had  actually  forgotten  the  third  line. 
He  knew  the  Ave  Maria  better.  He  had  heard 
it  oftener  in  sick-rooms  and  hospitals.  Oneida 
County  was  a  long  way  from  the  French  quarter 
of  New  York. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PELOUBET  was  more  discouraging  than 
ever  when  Dr.  Peters  informed  him  that 
he  proposed  to  make  the  Talbot  child  his  guest 
until  her  relatives  sent  for  her.  The  Doctor  had 
come  to  this  decision  while  smoking  his  after- 
breakfast  pipe.  He  had  debated  the  question 
within  himself  all  night,  and  had  satisfied  him 
self  a  dozen  times  over  that  there  was  nothing 
to  do  but  to  order  Lodoiska  Agnes  to  put  her 
self  in  charge  of  the  milliner.  He  was  consider 
ing  ways  and  means  of  avoiding  or  mitigating 
the  necessarily  consequent  "scene,"  when  it  sud 
denly  dawned  upon  his  mind  that  he  had  not  the 
slightest  intention  of  doing  anything  of  the  sort; 
and,  greatly  relieved  in  spirit,  he  marched  off  to 
Peloubet  to  tell  him  so. 

Peloubet  was  really  doubtful  this  time.  He 
had  made  the  suggestion  the  day  before,  but  it 
was  only  in  a  jocular  way — just  as  he  had  talked 
about  the  Doctor's  vast  wealth.  This  serious 
acceptance  of  the  idea  staggered  him.  He  was 
a  good,  sensible,  liberal-minded  man,  but  he  was 
a  Frenchman,  and  he  had  a  Frenchman's  ideas 
92 


THE  MIDGE. 


93 


and  prejudices.  The  Frenchman  in  him  had  a 
struggle  with  reason  and  experience  before  he 
gave  his  grave  and  dubious  consent.  After  all, 
though,  there  was  nothing  to  be  said  against  the 
proposition.  Dr.  Peters  could  have  qualified  in 
any  court  as  a  proper  guardian  for  the  child — 
and  it  was  a  saving  to  the  Society.  "  You  will 
ripport  ev-ver-y  wick,  eh?  "he  said:  "Eet  is  a 
fo'malitee — Jos'  write  me  a  line — I  put  it  on  ze 
file." 

The  temporary  guardian  of  Lodoiska  Agnes 
felt  an  almost  boyish  light-heartedness  as  he 
trudged  from  butcher  to  baker,  and  from  baker 
to  grocer,  that  cold,  sharp,  clear  morning,  exe 
cuting  domestic  commissions.  He  felt  that  he 
was  having  fun ;  that  he  was  going  to  have  fun. 
Perhaps  he  felt  also  that  he  had  not  behaved 
exactly  like  a  rational,  sober,  sensible  man,  forty 
years  old  ;  but  the  boy  in  him  rather  enjoyed  its 
own  assertion  of  independence.  He  was  not  at 
all  sure  that  he  didn't  want  to  run  away  from  the 
man  of  forty,  and  forget  his  dull  adult  rule. 

He  was  at  home  by  one  o'clock,  with  his  arms 
full  of  bundles,  and  when  he  reached  his  hallway, 
he  whistled  "  Boots  and  Saddles  "  up  the  kitchen 
stairs.  There  was  no  reply,  and  then  he  remem 
bered  that  he  had  a  parcel  to  stow  away  in  his 
own  room.  He  put  it  on  the  upper  shelf  of  the 
closet,  and  went  up  stairs  after  Lodoiska  Agnes. 
She  was  not  in  the  kitchen.  "  Here !  young 


94 


THE  MIDGE. 


woman  !  "  he  called,  and  glanced  vainly  into  the 
pantry.  He  waited  for  the  answer  that  did  not 
come,  and  then  he  looked  in  the  servant's 
room,  in  front.  There  was  no  trace  of  the  small 
housekeeper.  He  ran  down  stairs  and  glanced 
through  the  rooms.  She  was  not  there.  He 
looked  hastily  in  every  corner,  but  she  was  not 
there.  Up  stairs  again,  he  called  her,  and  got 
no  answer.  "  Here  !  young  one  ! — you — Lo-do- 
is-ka  !  "  he  cried.  Perhaps  she  had  gone  out  on 
some  errand.  But  just  then  he  remembered 
that  her  outer  garments,  which  were  a  jacket 
and  a  little  black  straw  hat,  were  still  at  Mme. 
Goubaud's.  They  had  been  hanging  in  the  old 
woman's  room  when  she  took  her  flight,  and 
Mme.  Goubaud  had  promised  him  to  send  them 
around,  and  had  not  kept  her  promise.  He 
knew  that,  for  Alphonsine  had  come  out  to 
thank  him  as  he  passed  through  Houston  Street 
that  afternoon,  and  she  had  bewailed  her  mis 
tress's  bad  faith.  A  sick  feeling  came  over  him. 
He  looked  around  to  see  if  a  window  was  open. 
What  a  fool  he  was !  Probably  the  child  had 
gone  down  stairs  to  scrape  acquaintance  with 
the  tenants  of  the  lower  kitchens.  Yes,  that  was 
it.  She  was  lonely,  and  she  had  gone  down 
stairs.  He  would  descend  and  see.  Then  came 
the  thought  that  he  might  not  find  her  there, 
and  he  cast  one  more  hopeless  glance  into  the 
depths  of  the  pantry. 


THE  MIDGE. 


95 


When  Dr.  Peters  had  first  undertaken  to  imi 
tate,  on  the  top  floor  of  a  New  York  lodging- 
house,  the  New  Netherlands  homestead  kitchen  of 
his  boyhood,  he  had  had  a  vivid  memory  of  his 
mother's  pickle-jar.  That  memory  represented 
it  as  a  stoneware  crock  of  colossal  size.  He  pic 
tured  it  to  incredulous  dealers  as  being  about  a 
yard  in  diameter.  They  one  and  all  assured 
him  that  no  such  crock  had  ever  been  known  in 
the  New  York  market.  He  expressed  his  unflat 
tering  opinion  of  the  New  York  market,  and 
continued  his  search.  Finally,  an  enterprising 
man  had  one  made  for  him.  It  came,  about  a 
year  after  his  plan  of  housekeeping  had  faded 
into  an  unsubstantial  dream.  It  was  twenty-four 
inches  across  the  top,  and  stood  nearly  three  feet 
high.  He  then  perceived  that  the  family  of  a 
Biblical  patriarch  could  not  have  needed  such  a 
pickle-jar.  And  he  remembered  also  that  he 
had  never  cared  much  for  pickles.  He  paid  the 
bill,  and  he  put  the  crock  on  its  side,  in  a  corner 
of  the  pantry's  lowest  shelf.  There  it  lay,  year 
after  year,  doomed  to  be  forever  pickle-less. 

There  it  lay  now,  with  Lodoiska  Agnes  in  it. 
She  was  seated  on  a  stool,  her  head  and  shoulders 
and  arms  within  the  vast  hollow  of  that  crock. 
The  Doctor,  his  heart  suddenly  light  once  more, 
went  to  her  and  gently  pulled  her  out.  She  had 
been  crying ;  her  face  was  wet  with  tears  and  her 
hair  was  wildly  "  mussed." 


96 


THE  MIDGE, 


"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked. 

"  Maman,"  she  replied,  simply. 

She  cried  a  little  more  on  his  shoulder,  and 
consented  to  be  comforted.  "  I  was  alone,"  she 
said,  "  and  I  wanted  to  be  in  the  night." 

He  lavished  caresses  upon  her  with  a  warmth 
that  she  did  not  quite  understand,  and  that  was 
something  of  a  revelation  to  the  Doctor  himself. 
He  told  her  eagerly  how  the  Benevolent  Society 
had  consented  to  let  her  stay  with  him  until  her 
uncle  should  want  her.  She  listened,  but  with 
no  great  interest.  She  had  never  contemplated 
any  other  order  of  things.  He  told  her  more 
about  Elise,  who  was  coming  that  afternoon. 
He  had  stopped  at  Mme.  Pigault's  to  get  the 
bundle  now  in  his  room ;  but  he  said  nothing 
about  that. 

Soon  they  were  chatting  cheerfully  over  their 
housekeeping  schemes.  He  made  a  diversion  to 
tell  her  how  frightened  he  had  been  when  he 
could  not  find  her ;  and  he  remembered  how  he 
had  struggled  with  her  polysyllabic  first  name. 

"  By  the  way,"  he  said,  "  what  am  I  going  to 
call  you  ?  " 

"  My  name  ?  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt 
Talbot.  It  is  long ;  but  it  is  nice,  don't  you 
think  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  know ; "  and  he  laughed :  "  it's  a  nice 
name  ;  but  it  won't  do  for  family  use.  '  Lodoiska' 
is  too  long,  and  I  don't  know  what  to  call  it  for 


THE  MIDGE.  97 

short,  and  you  don't  seem  to  me  to  be  '  Agnes/ 
somehow;  and  I  can't  call  you  either  of  the 
Hunts." 

"  '  Lodoiska '  is  a  nice  name,"  she  observed, 
gravely. 

"  Yes,  but  it's  altogether  too  much  of  a  name 
for  a  little  midget  like  you." 

"  What  is  a  midget?  "  she  inquired. 

"Why — "  he  hesitated:  "a  midget — a  midget 
is  a  little  thing  like  you." 

She  was  standing  before  him  as  he  leaned 
against  the  table,  holding  her  hands.  She  cer 
tainly  was  very  small. 

"  Why,"  he  went  on  ;  "  you're  not  even  a  mid 
get — you're  a  midge." 

" '  Midge,' "  she  said,  giving  the  word  a  curi 
ously  pretty  little  French  turn, " '  Midge'  is  a  nice 
name." 

"  It's  not  usually  given  to  girls,  though.  What 
— what  did — what  are  you  usually  called  ?  " 

"  Cherie"  she  said,  "  or  petite,  or — you  know — 
just  some  name  like  that.  They  said  that  same 
thing  what  you  said  about  Lodoiska — it  is  too 
long.  I  think  you  call  me  '  Midge ' — I  like  that 
name.  It  is  not  everybody  has  it." 

"  I  should  think  not,"  he  assented,  smiling. 
" '  Midge ' — '  Midge ' — well,  it  isn't  so  bad.  We'll 
try  it." 

"  And  now,"  she  began,  looking  calmly  up  at 
him,  "  what  I  call  you,  eh  ?  " 
7 


93 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  My  name  is  Evert  Peters." 

"  Doctor  Evert  Peters  ?  " 

"  Well,  they  call  me  so." 

She  reflected. 

" '  Doctor/  "  she  repeated :  "  I  like  not  that.  It 
is  too  much  physic.  Peters — no.  I  call  you 
Ev-ert" 

He  smiled  at  the  dainty  un-English  accentu 
ation. 

"  Ev-ert,"  she  said  again  :  "  Yes,  that  is  good. 
I  call  you  Ev-ert." 

The  innocent  audacity  of  the  idea  caught  his 
fancy.  How  many  years  it  was  since  any  one 
had  called  him  "  Evert  " !  and  it  had  a  pretty  sound 
as  she  spoke  it.  Yes,  she  should  call  him 
"Evert" — for  three  weeks. 

"  '  Evert '  it  is  !  "  he  said,  gayly,  and  caught 
her  up  and  kissed  her. 

***** 

Elise  came  later  in  the  afternoon,  a  tidy, 
grizzled  little  woman,  with  a  face  like  a  small 
and  well-disposed  gargoyle.  The  housekeeper 
was  pleased  with  her,  and  they  got  on  pleasantly 
together,  setting  amiably  to  work  to  prepare 
dinner. 

The  result  of  the  collaboration  was  satisfactory. 
At  six  o'clock  the  Doctor  and  the  Midge  sat 
down  to  a  modest,  but  well-cooked  meal,  the 
serving  whereof,  having  been  left  to  the  Midge, 
was  graced  with  numerous  refinements,  unsub- 


THE  MIDGE. 


99 


stantial  in  themselves,  but  appetizing  in  conjunc 
tion  with  the  labors  of  Elise.  She  herself  called 
his  attention  to  them,  with  frank  pleasure  in  her 
skill,  and  gave  him  hints  of  the  way  in  which 
these  accomplishments  had  been  acquired. 

There  was  a  napkin  folded  so  as  to  resemble 
a  snail-shell,  with  the  snail's  horned  head  peep 
ing  out. 

"  That"  she  asserted,  " is  a — what  is  then  the 
word  in  English? — a  chef-d'oeuvre.  The  other 
things  all  the  world  can  do ;  but  that  is  the  Art, 
you  understand — that  is  an  invention.  It  was 
Alcide  who  has  inventioned  that.  Alcide  was 
our  waiter  at  the  hotel  at  Nice.  Not  at  Mme. 
Cavelli — that  was  the  little  pension — boarding- 
house — where  we  went  first — but  up  at  the  hotel. 
We  have  gone  there  after  Papa  had  his  great  luck 
at  Monaco." 

"Eh?"  broke  in  the  Doctor,  with  his  fork 
poised  in  the  air. 

"  He  made  much  money  at  Monaco — at  the 
Bank.  Three  thousand  francs.  It  was  not  for 
long.  He  had  bad  luck  next  week." 

"  Gambling  ?  " 

It  was  her  turn  to  say  "  Eh  ?  " 
.     "  What  do  you  mean  by  '  luck '?  " 

"  Oh !  He  made  money  at  the  play — at  the 
table.  They  play  cards  there — thousands — oh, 
thousands  of  people,  all  at  the  same  time.  Some 
times  they  make  much  money.  Most  times  they 


100  THE  MIDGE. 

lose.  The  bank  makes  all  the  money  most  times. 
It  is  amusing." 

The  Doctor  distinctly  heard  the  call  of  duty. 

"  In  this  country  we  think  it's  wrong  to  do  that 
— to  play  cards  for  money." 

"  You  think  that  ?  That  is  amusing,  too,"  she 
said,  with  pleasant  indifference. 

The  Doctor  was  silent.  He  felt  himself  help 
less.  He  did  not  try  to  illuminate  with  the  rush 
light  of  an  impromptu  disquisition  on  the  sin  of 
gambling  the  vast  moral  darkness  that  this 
answer  revealed.  But  he  tried  to  sound  the  pro 
fundity  of  her  ignorance ;  and  he  led  the  conver 
sation  by  slow  degrees  to  the  subject  of  religion, 
and  made  some  desultory  inquiries  into  the  faith 
of  her  parents.  The  topic  did  not  interest  the 
Midge,  and  she  gave  him  but  scanty  information 
before  she  skipped  away  to  some  more  congenial 
theme.  Maman  was  a  Catholic,  she  said ;  but  she 
did  not  go  to  confession.  Maman  said  that  was 
superstitious,  and  Papa  said  so  too.  Papa  was  a 
Church  of  England  man.  That  was  the  only 
church  for  a  gentleman,  he  said.  He  did  not  go 
to  church,  of  course;  there  were  no  churches  of 
that  kind  anywhere  they  had  been.  Yes,  that  was 
strange ;  but  Papa  said  there  were  none.  Papa 
knew  a  great  many  priests.  He  liked  them  when 
they  played  piquet.  She  liked  them  too,  herself 
Pere  Mathieu  was  very  nice.  He  always  gave 
her  bonbons.  Sometimes  he  brought  the  bon- 


THE  MIDGE. 


101 


bons  in  the  same  pocket  with  his  tobacco,  and 
that  was  not  nice.  But  it  was  good  of  him,  all 
the  same.  Pere  Mathieu  drank  too  much  wine. 
And  then  she  asked  the  Doctor  if  he  did  not 
think  it  was  bad  to  drink  too  much  wine. 

At  nine  o'clock  he  told  her  that  he  was  going 
around  to  the  Brasserie  Pigault  for  an  hour. 
The  announcement  was  made  with  some  awk 
wardness  ;  but  it  was  received  with  a  cheerful 
submission  that  rather  disappointed  him.  If  he 
had  known  more  of  womankind,  it  might  have 
put  him  on  his  guard. 

She  got  him  his  hat  and  coat,  and  she  men 
tioned  a  number  of  small  occupations  with  which 
she  proposed  to  while  away  the  period  of  his 
desertion.  She  accepted  her  prospective  loneli 
ness  meekly  and  uncomplainingly,  making  no 
manner  of  remonstrance.  But  when  he  left  her, 
she  stood  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  and  watched 
him  go.  He  reached  the  lower  hall  and  lingered 
a  moment  to  hear  her  turn  back  in  his  room  and 
shut  the  door.  But  he  caught  no  sound  from 
above,  and  he  went  out  with  the  uncomfortable 
feeling  that  the  lonely  little  figure  was  still  stand 
ing  there,  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  looking  down 
the  way  he  had  gone. 

The  comforts  of  the  Brasserie  Pigault  did  not 
appeal  to  him  that  evening.  He  had  gone  there 
as  a  matter  of  principle,  feeling  that  there  was 
something  weak  in  breaking  up  his  regular 


1O2  THE  MIDGE. 

habits,  even  to  please  himself.  Yet  he  could  not 
enjoy  his  beer  while  he  had  the  unpleasant  feeling 
that  took  possession  of  him  as  he  thought  of  the 
lonely  Midge  at  the  top  of  the  dark  stairs.  He  re 
fused  to  play  a  game  of  dominos  with  Mr.  Martin, 
and  then  he  felt  still  more  uncomfortable,  as  he 
saw  the  poor  old  gentleman  sit  watching  the  door, 
in  hopes  that  M.  Ovide  Marie,  or  some  other 
friendly  soul,  would  come  in  to  play  with  him. 

Dr.  Peters  read  two  columns  of  editorials  in 
one  of  the  morning  papers.  When  he  had  fin 
ished  the  two  columns,  he  found  that  he  had 
paid  no  attention  whatever  to  the  meaning  of  the 
words.  He  was  thoroughly  dissatisfied  with 
himself.  He  decided  to  go  home  and  go  to  bed. 
It  was  early,  of  course ;  but  then  he  could  stroll 
slowly  back,  and  perhaps  walk  a  few  blocks  up 
Fifth  Avenue.  It  was  a  fine  night,  and  not  cold. 
The  brasserie  was  close  and  warm.  A  saunter 
in  the  open  air  would  be  just  the  thing  for  him. 
But  when  he  was  once  in  the  street,  he  walked 
home  as  straight  and  as  fast  as  he  could. 

The  Midge  welcomed  him  with  a  kiss,  making 
him  bend  down  so  that  she  might  put  her  arms 
about  his  neck.  His  attitude  was  symbolic,  and 
he  recognized  the  fact.  He  knew  why  he  had 
come  home ;  he  knew  that  she  knew  it,  and  he 
felt  that  he  was  being  rewarded  for  good  be 
havior.  It  was  his  turn  for  submission.  He 
accepted  his  subjugation  in  penitent  gladness. 


THE  MIDGE. 


103 


She  invited  him  to  sit  down  in  the  easy-chair, 
and  she  climbed  on  his  knee  and  tucked  her 
head  under  his  ear ;  and  they  sat  there  chatting 
for  an  hour.  She  treated  him  to  various  small 
caresses  from  time  to  time.  It  was  very  pleas 
ant;  but  he  remembered  the  case  of  the  butcher's 
boy,  and  he  began  to  have  a  dim  idea  of  what 
she  meant  by  "  being  nice  "  to  people.  It  dis 
turbed  him  a  little.  He  had  not  known  that 
they  began  so  young. 

Lacking  any  positive  knowledge  on  the  sub 
ject,  the  Doctor  concluded  that  half-past  ten  was 
a  good  hour  for  a  child  of  twelve  to  go  to  bed ; 
so  at  half-past  ten  she  prepared  her  temporary 
couch,  by  his  orders.  Then  he  sent  her  into 
the  hall-way  to  turn  out  the  gas,  and  he  made  a 
hurried  trip  to  his  own  room  and  back.  After 
he  had  bidden  her  good-night,  and  had  closed 
the  door  behind  him,  she  found  on  her  bed  a 
package.  Mme.  Pigault  had  acted  as  the  Doc 
tor's  agent  in  purchasing  the  contents.  They 
supplied  certain  crying  needs  in  the  Midge's 
wardrobe.  Presumably  they  answered  their 
purpose.  But  never,  not  on  the  morrow,  or  at 
any  time  thereafter,  did  she  make  the  slightest 
mention  of  them. 

It  was  not  three  days  before  the  Doctor  woke 
to  an  uneasy  consciousness  that  he  had  made 
a  grave  misstep.  He  had  to  acknowledge  to 


104 


THE  MIDGE. 


himself  that  an  attachment  of  the  affections  was 
beginning  to  bind  him  to  this  waif  who  must 
in  a  couple  of  weeks  be  sent  across  the  ocean 
to  her  natural  guardians  and  protectors.  And 
when  he  admitted  to  his  reason  that  the  attach 
ment  was  growing,  within  his  heart  he  knew 
that  it  had  grown — the  mischief  was  done.  And 
the  worst  of  it  was — she  was  the  worst  of  it. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  coxcomb  about  Dr. 
Peters.  He  was  rather  modestly  distrustful  of 
all  proffered  affection,  from  man,  woman  or  child. 
He  knew,  moreover,  how  often  a  child's  fondness 
is  a  mere  cat-like  adaptation  to  agreeable  condi 
tions.  But  he  perceived  in  this  child  an  ardent 
temperament  and  a  precocious  decision  of  char 
acter  that  gave  her  likes  and  dislikes  the  weight 
and  value  of  maturity.  And  that  she  was  seri 
ously  fond  of  him,  already,  there  was  no  doubt. 
She  was  a  waif,  and  she  was  tying  herself  up  to 
him  as  the  one  thing  stable  and  trustworthy 
in  a  stormy  world. 

Seeing  all  this,  dreading  the  parting  close  at 
hand,  he  proceeded  to  make  the  situation  worse 
day  by  day.  When  a  strong  will  is  once  handed 
over  to  the  control  of  the  ill-regulated  affections, 
those  beggars-on-horseback  are  wont  to  ride 
their  prey  pretty  hard.  With  a  complete  aban 
donment  of  discretion  and  common-sense,  Dr. 
Peters  devoted  all  his  time  to  the  society  of  a 
weird,  strange,  heathenish  infant,  of  foreign  ex- 


THE  MIDGE,  IQ$ 

traction,  who  did  not  belong  to  him,  and  who 
had  dangerously  clinging  ways  about  her. 

After  his  overthrow  on  the  second  evening 
after  her  arrival,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  give  up 
the  Brasserie  Pigault  during  the  Midge's  stay. 
Pretty  soon  he  found  that  he  was  giving  up 
everything  else  in  the  way  of  individual  initia 
tive.  If  he  went  to  walk,  he  took  her  with  him. 
If  he  worked  at  his  gun,  it  was  only  when  she 
condescended  to  perch  on  his  work-bench  and 
chatter  to  him.  Work  was  neglected  when  it 
struck  her  vagrant  fancy  that  they  both  would 
be  better  employed  looking  in  the  shop-windows 
on  Broadway,  or  inspecting  the  steamers  at  the 
West  Street  piers. 

It  was  very  foolish ;  it  was  worse  than  foolish, 
he  guiltily  admitted  to  himself  when  he  thought 
it  over  at  night,  after  the  little  one  had  gone  to 
bed.  It  was  a  self-indulgence  likely  to  bring 
cruel  consequences. 

Look  at  it  whatever  way  he  might,  he  could 
only^  reproach  himself.  His  conscience  told  him 
of  the  wrong  he  was  doing  the  child,  and  his 
reason  had  no  adequate  excuse  to  offer.  True, 
he  had  been  lonely.  He  had  not  known  the 
measure  of  his  own  loneliness  until  her  advent 
opened  his  eyes.  She  filled  his  days  so  full  of 
bright  companionship  that  he  began  to  realize 
how  empty  they  had  been  before  she  came ;  how 
much  emptier  they  would  be  after  she  had  gone. 


I06  THE  MIDGE. 

And  yet — did  he  want  to  keep  her  with  him  ? 
No,  he  had  to  answer  himself.  How  could  he 
take  the  charge  of  this  untutored  mind,  assume 
the  vast  responsibility  of  her  education,  moral 
and  mental,  take  upon  himself  the  burden  of 
shaping  her  life  ?  Of  course,  there  was  no  need 
of  thinking  of  it — it  was  not  a  possibility  to  be 
considered — but  if  even  in  the  speculation  of 
fancy  he  was  forced  to  acknowledge  that  he  did 
not  care  to  have  the  child  for  his  own,  what 
right  had  he  to  treat  her  as  though  she  were 
indeed  his  ? 

But  ten  days  slipped  away,  and  two  weeks, 
before  he  finally  cast  up  accounts  with  himself. 
He  had  made  two  or  three  attempts  to  hold  her 
off  at  arm's  length,  by  way  of  preparing  her  for 
the  approaching  separation.  They  had  been 
pitiful  failures.  She  had  only  nestled  the  closer, 
each  time.  And  now,  he  reflected,  it  was  too 
late.  The  order  of  separation  must  come  in  a 
week.  Conscience  should  be  silent  for  that 
week,  while  he  and  the  Midge  enjoyed  their 
comradeship.  And  conscience  acquiesced  with 
base  and  treacherous  readiness,  until  three  days  or 
so  before  the  letter  from  Europe  was  due,  rising 
up  then  to  torment  him  with  refreshed  vigor. 

The  letter  should  have  arrived  on  a  Saturday. 
It  did  not  come  then,  nor  on  Monday,  nor  on 
Tuesday.  He  felt  nervous  and  unstrung.  He 
took  to  excessive  smoking.  The  Midge  con- 


THE  MIDGE. 

eluded  that  he  was  sick,  and  consoled  him  with 
caresses  which  he  received  in  shame  and  abase 
ment  of  spirit.  He  wished  the  letter  would  ap 
pear,  to  end  the  matter ;  but  he  clung  to  each 
hour  of  suspense,  and  when  it  turned  up  on 
Wednesday,  he  was  no  more  ready  for  it  than 
he  had  been  a  fortnight  before. 

It  was  a  brief  letter ;  but  it  was  clear  and  ex 
plicit.  Sir  Richard  Talbot  did  not  feel  himself 
in  a  position  to  undertake  the  care  of  Mrs.  Hugh 
Talbot's  child.  He  had  already  extended  to  his 
unfortunate  brother  all  the  assistance  in  his 
power.  The  claims  upon  him  were  such  that 
he  did  not  feel  justified  in  going  to  any  further 
expense.  He  begged  leave  to  inform  Dr.  Peters 
that  his  brother's  marriage  had  been  made  against 
the  wishes  of  his  family,  and  that  he,  Sir  Richard, 
could  not  consent  to  consider  himself  as  in 
any  way  responsible  for  the  maintenance  of  his 
brother's  child.  If,  however,  the  child  could  be 
placed  in  a  respectable  orphan  asylum,  not  under 
the  charge  of  Romanists  or  Dissenters — this 
was  a  positive  condition — Sir  Richard  would 
pay  any  necessary  fees.  If  Dr.  Peters  would 
communicate  with  Sir  Richard's  lawyers,  whose 
address  was  enclosed,  he  would  find  them  fully 
advised.  They  would  also  be  prepared  to  make 
good  to  Dr.  Peters  any  expenditure  of  money 
or  time  which  he  might  have  been  obliged  to 
make  on  account  of  the  child. 


I08  THE  MIDGE. 

"  By  thunder ! "  said  the  Doctor  to  himself, 
"  he  did  want  to  *  tip  me  'arf-a-crown/  for  a  fact." 

Sir  Richard's  niece  came  into  the  room  while 
the  Doctor  was  tearing  up  the  letter  and  drop 
ping  the  pieces  into  the  fire. 

"  Midge,"  he  said,  "  how  would  you  like  to 
stay  with  me — I  mean  for  good  and  all — for 
ever?" 

"  But  certainly  I  will  stay  with  you  forever," 
she  said,  rubbing  her  cheek  against  his  coat- 
sleeve  :  "  what  is  it  you  have  thought  ?  " 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  to  your  uncle  in 
England." 

She  pursed  her  lips  and  shook  her  head  in 
airy,  contemptuous  negation. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  never  have  meant  to  go 
there.  I  have  meant  to  stay  with  you." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IT  was  done.  The  move  was  made,  and,  like  a 
wise  commander,  the  Doctor  burned  his  ships 
without  procrastination.  That  day  he  called 
upon  Peloubet,  and  the  next  day  Sir  Richard's 
lawyers  were  notified  that  the  child  was  in  charge 
of  the  French  Benevolent  Society,  and  that  she 
would  be  properly  cared  for  without  cost  to  Sir 
Richard.  And  the  lawyers  informed  their  client 
of  this  fact,  and  frankly  advised  him  to  take  no 
further  steps  in  the  matter.  He  took  none. 

The  Doctor  went  before  the  Board  of  Control 
of  the  Society,  established  his  respectability  and 
responsibility,  and  was  formally  made  the  guard 
ian  of  Lodoiska  Agnes  Hunt  Hunt  Talbot. 
And  then,  to  finish  his  work,  he  took  the  Midge 
to  Mme.  Pigault,  a  dressmaker  was  called  in, 
and  the  three  of  them  "  confectioned  "  a  ward 
robe.  The  Midge  had  a  voice  in  all  that  was 
said,  and  the  wardrobe  did  not  lack  the  stamp  of 
her  individuality.  She  wanted  to  have  some 
mourning  dresses ;  but  the  Doctor  emphatically 
objected,  and  so  she  gave  up  the  idea  and  went 
in  for  artistic  arrangements  of  red  ribbon. 

109 


!  I0  THE  MIDGE. 

So  it  was  finished ;  the  last  scruple  of  con 
science  was  satisfied ;  there  was  no  act  left  undone 
in  formal  confirmation  and  establishment  of  his 
impulsive  adoption  of  the  child.  What  he  had 
undertaken  hastily  he  had  carried  out  with  honest 
deliberation.  And  now  he  could  afford  to  ask 
himself  about  the  wisdom  of  it. 

There  is,  I  believe,  a  disease  known  as 
"engaged-fright."  It  is  said  to  attack  young 
men  and  women  who  are  betrothed,  when  they 
realize  that  in  the  game  of  matrimony  they  have 
put  their  stakes  upon  the  table,  and  the  wheel  is 
spinning.  In  some  instances,  it  forces  them  to 
snatch  their  money  back,  and  withdraw  from  the 
game.  But  in  the  majority  of  cases,  they  strug 
gle  against  the  sensation,  feeling  that  they  have 
gone  too  far  to  get  out  honorably  or  comfortably, 
and  they  leave  it  to  time  and  married  life  to 
"  pinch  into  its  pilulous  smallness  the  cobweb  of 
pre-matrimonial  acquaintance."  Thus  do  many 
blunder  into  happiness. 

The  Doctor's  feelings  were  not  unlike  those  of 
a  very  unsettled  young  man  in  wholly  different 
circumstances.  If  his  doubts  could  have  affected 
his  action,  he  would  have  been  positively  unhappy. 
But  he  reflected,  with  a  shameful  satisfaction  in 
the  moral  weakness  of  his  defense,  that,  for  better 
or  worse,  the  matter  was  settled  ;  he  had  only  to 
do  his  best,  and  trust  that  all  would  be  well. 

But  doubts  rose  up  to  harass  him  in  such 


THE  MIDGE.  XII 

numbers  that  in  the  midst  of  his  trouble  he  had 
a  humorous  suspicion  of  the  morbid  and  fantastic 
nature  of  their  origin. 

No  possible  suggestion  of  future  misfortune 
was  spared  him.  What  did  he  know,  after  all, 
of  this  child  ?  What  inherited  traits  might  she 
not  have  that  would  cause  him  trouble  hereafter  ? 
What  ugliness  of  character  might  she  not  de 
velop,  to  put  herself  outside  of  his  affection  and 
regard  ?  And  even  if  she  were  all  that  she  should 
be,  what  guarantee  could  he  give  himself  that  his 
own  fondness  for  her  would  not  some  day  wear 
out  in  the  selfishness  of  age  ?  Was  he  not  unwise 
to  open  the  gate  of  that  quiet  garden-plot  of  his 
life,  to  let  in  a  stranger  from  the  street,  who  would 
share  with  him  his  secluded  walks  ?  Had  he 
not  been  in  sole  possession  too  long  to  bear  such 
intrusion  with  lasting  good  grace  ? 

He  asked  himself  such  questions  as  these. 
He  even  went  further,  and  questioned  the  sincer 
ity  and  genuineness  of  the  child's  affection  for 
him.  From  this  he  came  back  to  sanity,  when 
he  perceived  the  depths  of  cynical  speculation  in 
which  the  idea  involved  him. 

But  when  the  unprofitable  self-torment  was  put 
aside,  enough  remained  to  worry  him.  The 
Midge  had  shown  no  evil  tendencies  whatever ; 
but  she  dwelt  serenely  in  an  atmosphere  of  pagan 
un-morality,  doing  right  only  by  natural  impulse 
and  an  innate  sense  of  ethical  good  taste.  He 


112 


THE  MIDGE. 


did  not  feel  sure  that  he  was  competent  to  under 
take  her  education ;  and  if  he  were,  he  did  not 
know  where  to  begin. 

The  time  to  come  dismayed  him.  In  ten  or  a 
dozen  years  she  would  become  of  marriageable 
age.  Where  was  he  to  find  her  a  husband  ?  The 
Doctor  was  not  socially  ambitious,  nor  given  to 
overmuch  observation  of  class  distinctions ;  but 
he  could  see  that  his  little  circle  of  casual  ac 
quaintances  was  not  likely  to  furnish  forth  an 
eligible  husband  for  a  young  woman  of  rather 
delicate  clay.  And  if  she  did  not  marry,  what 
then  ?  When  he  himself  came  to  die,  at  sixty  or 
seventy — the  Doctor  thought  that  he  would  be 
ready  to  die  at  sixty  or  seventy — was  he  to  leave 
her  in  mature  but  unprotected  maidenhood  ? 

When  a  man  is  in  a  morbid  state  such  as  this, 
and  is  trying  to  keep  his  internal  irritation  to 
himself,  a  chance  abrasion  from  the  outside  pene 
trates  his  self-consciousness  with  peculiar  cruelty. 
He  feels  that  the  world  knows,  or  is  likely  to 
know,  what  a  pitiable  thing  he  is ;  and  every 
trifling  annoyance  to  his  pride  seems  like  a 
wound  at  the  hand  of  malicious  contempt. 
Madame  Pigault  unwittingly  stabbed  the  Doctor 
under  the  fifth  rib,  and  he  himself  gave  the  blade 
a  twist. 

He  had  dropped  in  to  pay  the  dressmaker's 
bill,  and  lingering  a  moment  to  chat,  for  he  felt 
somewhat  of  a  deserter  under  the  Pigault  roof, 


THE  MIDGE.  U3 

his  awkwardness  in  his  new  position  betrayed 
him  into  a  clumsy  jest. 

"  I  feel  rather  strange,  Madame  Pigault,"  he 
said,  "  entertaining  a  young  lady  in  my  bachelor's 
hall.  But  I  guess  I'm  old  enough.  You  don't 
think  people  will  talk,  do  you  ?  " 

"  What  shall  they  talk  ?  "  demanded  Mme. 
Pigault,  with  sympathetic  warmth.  "  They  can 
only  say  that  you  are  very  good.  We  other 
women,  we  will  not  speak  bad  of  you.  It  is  not 
every  man,  voyez-voiis,  Monsieur  le  Docteur,  who 
is  generous  like  you.  We  know  that — we  know 
what  they  are,  the  men.  May  the  good  God 
have  pity  of  us !  But  we  know  what  they  are. 
They  will  only  say  you  have  behaved  noble." 

The  Doctor  murmured  a  confused  acknowl 
edgment,  and  digested  the  compliment  when  he 
got  out  in  the  street.  His  cheeks  burnt  when  he 
understood  it. 

"  I'm  damned,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  if  they 
ain't  beasts ! " 

They  were  aliens  and  strangers.  He  had  lived 
among  them  for  fifteen  years ;  but  they  were  aliens 
and  strangers,  after  all.  He  could  never  be  quite 
at  home  with  them  ;  they  could  never  be  to  him 
exactly  as  his  own  people.  There  was  always  a 
difference — a  something  at  bottom  that  was  irre 
concilable  with  perfect  understanding  or  friend 
ship.  Here  was  this  woman,  a  religious  woman, 
a  good  wife,  a  good  mother,  calmly  and  as  a 
8 


j  ^  THE  MIDGE. 

matter  of  course  putting  this  hideous  interpre 
tation  on  his  simple  action.  Had  they,  then,  no 
decent,  natural  clean-mindedness  ?  He  remem 
bered  how  in  his  boyhood  he  had  walked  to 
morning  church  by  his  mother's  side,  and  how 
they  had  passed  the  French  Canadians  who  formed 
a  little  colony  near  by,  strolling  home  from  mass. 
His  mother  had  looked  the  other  way  as  they 
went  by ;  but  he  had  stared  at  them  in  contempt 
mingled  with  a  certain  awe  at  the  audacity  of 
creatures  who  could  dare  to  live  and  breathe,  and 
yet  refuse  to  conform  to  the  correct  standard 
of  Protestant  America.  Was  there  not,  indeed, 
some  justification  for  his  childish  narrowness  of 
mind  ?  Was  not  the  stamp  of  a  hopeless  infer 
iority  upon  the  race  ? 

He  was  vexed  and  hurt ;  but  after  a  while  his 
sense  of  justice  asserted  itself.  He  had  con 
victed  Mme.  Pigault  of  wronging  him  with  an 
unclean  suspicion ;  but  he  had  to  give  her  credit 
for  the  charity  that  pardoned  the  imputed  sin, 
and  cordially  approved  the  supposed  penitential 
reparation.  He  could  hot  help  thinking  that  he 
was  lucky  to  live  in  a  community  where  such  a 
misunderstanding  could  not  possibly  put  an  in 
nocent  child  under  a  cruel  social  ban. 

He  had  another  remembrance  of  Oneida  County. 
He  remembered  when  Injun  Jane  came  down 
from  the  Reservation  to  sell  baskets.  She  brought 
her  boy  with  her,  and  none  of  the  boys  of  the 


THE  MIDGE.  !  r  5 

town  would  play  with  him.  Everybody  knew 
that  he  was  the  son  of  Pete  Doolittle,  who  owned 
the  farm  back  of  the  Peters's,  and  who  had  also 
a  family  of  young  Doolittles,  born  with  the 
sanction  of  society  and  religion.  But  nobody 
would  play  with  Injun  Jane's  Joe,  and  so  while 
she  sold  her  baskets  at  the  kitchen  door,  he 
stood  alone  in  the  road,  a  bright,  slim  boy,  not 
much  browner  than  the  other  country-bred 
youngsters,  noticeably  different  only  in  his  black, 
coarse,  straight  hair,  like  a  colt's  mane.  He  was 
proud  and  silent,  and  he  made  no  attempt  to 
speak  to  any  of  them ;  but  twanged  his  won 
derful  snakewood  bow  and  sent  arrow  after  arrow 
through  a  knot-hole.  It  was  his  one  form  of 
silent  self-assertion,  and  the  other  boys  in  their 
hearts  envied  his  skill,  as  they  hung  over  the 
fences  and  jeered  at  him  as  loudly  as  they  dared 
to.  Evert  Peters  had  been  one  of  those  mean 
boys  in  his  time,  and  he  thought  of  it  with  shame. 
Yet  he  knew  that  it  had  not  been  from  inborn 
meanness  in  him,  or  in  Visscher  Jansen,  or  in 
Phil  Doolittle.  They  had  merely  reflected  the 
sentiment  of  the  elder  community.  It  seemed 
that  there  were  expansions  of  Christian  charity 
in  the  French  quarter  of  New  York  that  were 
unknown  in  Oneida  County. 

There  were  plenty  of  annoyances  for  the 
Doctor,  in  his  new  capacity  of  guardian  ;  but  he 
did  not  doubt  and  suffer  wholly  as  one  without 


THE  MIDGE. 

hope.  He  might  arraign  himself  for  his  unwise 
soft-heartedness ;  but  he  continued  to  be  soft 
hearted,  and  he  enjoyed  the  consequences.  He 
felt  that  he  was  having  a  good  time,  a  better 
time,  in  every  way,  than  he  could  ever  remember 
before.  Viewed  as  a  responsibility,  the  Midge 
undeniably  caused  him  uneasiness ;  but  consid 
ered  as  a  companion,  she  was  unmixed  and 
unlimited  fun.  Even  when  the  companion  gave 
way  to  the  fatherless,  motherless  child,  and  she 
sobbed  on  his  shoulder,  her  personal  grief  never 
put  her  apart  from  him.  He  had  always  the 
knowledge  that  his  love  and  tenderness  were  a 
consolation  to  her,  and  her  every  outburst  of 
grief  for  those  she  had  lost  made  her  somehow 
more  his  own. 

She  had,  moreover,  in  her  vehement,  earnest 
nature,  a  faculty  of  feeling  one  thing  at  a  time 
which  helped  her  greatly  through  the  first  hard 
weeks.  When  she  put  aside  her  sorrow,  she 
devoted  herself  to  what  she  had  in  hand  wholly 
and  thoroughly.  When  she  thought  of  pleasing 
or  serving  her  protector,  she  gave  him  her  eager 
affection  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  every  other 
interest.  He  got  into  the  habit  of  slipping  in  to 
look  at  her  an  hour  or  two  after  she  had  gone  to 
bed,  and  he  often  found  her  awake  and  crying 
softly  to  herself.  But  when  he  sat  down  by  her 
side  and  began  to  soothe  her,  she  resolutely  dried 
her  tears,  and  turned  her  whole  attention  to  him, 


THE  MIDGE. 


117 


and  he  became,  for  the  time,  the  one  important 
being  in  her  small  world.  So  her  housekeeping, 
which  was  something  between  work  and  play, 
was  all-engrossing  while  she  was  about  it.  Her 
sense  of  loss  was  loyally  strong  and  lasting ;  but 
its  manifestations  were  intense  and  exclusive,  and 
when  it  had  found  its  relief,  she  took  up  her  new 
life  in  the  same  spirit  of  loyalty. 

She  certainly  put  her  whole  soul  into  the 
furnishing  of  her  bed-room.  It  was  the  large 
back  room.  The  Doctor  had  given  it  up  to  her, 
and  had  taken  his  models  and  tools  to  the  front 
hall-room  up  stairs.  This  was  only  a  temporary 
arrangement,  so  far  as  his  work  was  concerned ; 
but  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would 
be  well  to  let  the  work  go,  for  a  little  while.  He 
would  come  back  to  it  with  a  fresh  zest,  and  he 
might  thus  accomplish  more.  And  he  was  not 
quite  certain  in  his  own  mind  whether  it  was 
worth  while  to  go  on  with  the  cannon  or  not. 
His  original  idea  seemed  to  have  grown  anti 
quated.  And  at  one  time  he  had  had  some 
notion  of  trying  to  simplify  the  mechanism  of 
the  sewing-machine.  Perhaps  it  might  be  wise 
to  look  into  the  sewing-machine  question  once 
more.  At  any  rate,  he  could  do  nothing  until 
the  Midge  was  really  settled,  and  their  various 
plans  of  home-making  were  carried  out. 

The  room  was  certainly  very  pretty  when  the 
Midge  at  last  took  possession.  He  was  surprised 


H8  THE  MIDGE. 

to  see  how  his  own  conception  of  what  a  room 
should  be  had  been  disregarded  with  pleasing 
effect.  There  was  a  Frenchy  chintz-pattern  paper 
on  the  walls,  with  a  darker  dado — this  was  the 
Doctor's  first  experience  of  a  dado — and  there 
were  curtains  and  portieres  of  cretonne.  Cre 
tonne  and  portieres  were  also  new  words  to  him. 
He  could  not  quite  remember  how  these  things 
had  been  done.  The  tradesmen  had  suggested 
them,  to  the  best  of  his  remembrance;  the  Midge 
had  approved,  with  a  prompt  exhibition  of  easy 
familiarity  with  such  matters ;  he  had  disap 
proved,  and,  somehow,  there  the  things  were, 
and  he  was  satisfied.  He  had  wanted  black 
walnut  furniture,  and  had  sternly  objected  to 
mahogany  with  brass  trimmings  as  being  old- 
fashioned;  but  he  had  yielded  to  the  supercilious 
scorn  of  the  dealers  and  the  strong  backing  the 
Midge  gave  them,  and  there  was  the  mahogany 
and  brass,  just  like  that  which  he  had  seen  in  his 
boyhood,  except  that  it  was  more  shiny.  There 
was  only  one  thing  in  the  room  that  he  had 
bought  uncontrolled  and  unaided,  and  that  was 
the  brass  bedstead,  with  its  light  chintz-draped 
tester.  And  he  never  would  have  bought  that  if 
the  Midge  had  not  casually  and  artlessly  de 
scribed  such  a  bed,  which  she  had  seen  in  a  stolen 
peep  into  the  apartments  of  some  royal  personage 
in  a  French  watering-place  hotel. 

The  general  effect  was  creditable  to  the  Midge. 


THE  MIDGE.  ng 

He  had  had  to  chasten  her  somewhat  extravagant 
taste  in  certain  particulars.  She  had  expressed  a 
yearning,  repressed  at  his  especial  desire,  for 
white  and  gold ;  and  he  felt  that  he  had  not  been 
too  firm.  He  had  been  obliged  to  deny  her  a 
bisque  clock,  representing  a  pannier  of  roses ; 
and  he  had  stood  out  against  a  waxed  floor.  But, 
looking  on  the  work  as  a  whole,  it  dawned  upon 
him  that  the  Midge  had  some  lights  in  matters 
of  taste  which  had  never  been  revealed  to  his 
artistic  consciousness. 

Yet  there  were  some  of  her  fancies  that  were 
quite  incomprehensible  to  him.  While  they  were 
in  the  way  of  furnishing,  they  made  some  radical 
changes  in  the  sitting-room,  to  its  great  improve 
ment;  and  for  the  uneasy  easy-chair  of  faded 
green  reps,  they  substituted  a  leather-covered 
structure  that  was  as  comfortable  as  it  was  big. 
But  the  Midge  insisted  on  taking  the  discarded 
piece  of  furniture  into  her  pretty,  new  room,  and, 
despite  his  protests,  she  had  a  slip-cover  of  chintz 
made  for  it,  and  put  the  ungainly  thing  in  a  sunny 
corner  by  the  window  and  sat  in  it  to  sew  and  to 
study.  • 

For  she  had  begun  a  course  of  study.  She 
had  at  first  expressed  a  doubt  as  to  there  being 
anything  left  for  her  to  learn ;  but  after  a  test 
examination,  the  Doctor  had  become  convinced 
that  not  only  must  her  education  be  taken  in 
hand  at  once,  but  he  must  take  it  in  hand  him- 


I20  THE  MIDGE. 

self.  No  school  was  fitted  to  cope  with  such  a 
bewildering  combination  of  knowledge  and  ignor 
ance.  In  simple  arithmetic  she  had  great  pro 
ficiency.  She  could  calculate  with  marvelous 
rapidity  in  French,  German,  English  and  Ameri 
can  currency.  She  had,  so  to  speak,  an  empirical 
knowledge  of  European  geography.  She  could 
read  fluently  in  French  and  English.  But  she 
had  never  regarded  it  as  necessary  or  expedient 
to  learn  to  spell  in  either  language.  He  asked 
her  to  give  him  a  specimen  of  her  hand-writing. 
She  evaded  compliance  at  the  moment,  but  the 
next  morning,  when  he  left  the  house,  he  found 
this  note  hid  in  his  hat: 


i  louve  you  hot  i  louve  not  the  riting 

i  can  djiographie  a  ritmatique  Tranche  ingliche   and   „   

too  couque  hot  not  the  riting  seau  wel 

i  dounot  thingue  it  is  goude  for  a  wouman  too  nau  too  muche 
howe  too  rite 

i  am  your  afectuous  frend 

midj 

When  he  had  got  this  insight  into  her  system 
of  phonetics,  he  went  out  and  bought  a  lot  of 
school-books,  and  he  began  his  task  of  instruction 
with  many  forebodings.  But  she  soon  relieved  his 
fears.  She  saw  that  he  desired  it,  and  she  studied 
hard.  She  learned  only  too  rapidly ;  but  she  re 
tained  a  fair  proportion  of  what  she  learned.  Of 
course,  he  had  to  make  some  allowance  for  her 


THE  MIDGE.  I2i 

habits  of  independent  thought.  To  the  end  she 
retained  a  profound  contempt  for  the  unpractical 
character  of  the  man  who  wrote  the  spelling-book. 

"Acme,  apostroph\  asth-ma"  she  said,  running 
her  finger  down  the  column,  "  what  shall  he  want 
of  such  words  like  those  ?  I  never  shall  say 
them.  Apple,  acorn,  ashes — there  is  the  sense. 
If  you  go  take  a  walk  in  the  country,  you  see 
acorns, you  see  apples.  But  you  never  shall  say: 
'  See  the  beautiful  apostroph ' ' — '  look  at  the  fine 
asth-ma.'  It  is  a  stupidness,  to  write  such  words 
that  nobody  will  say." 

The  spelling-book  was  a  humiliation  for  the 
Midge,  and  in  self-defense  she  sought  to  vindicate 
her  claim  to  intellectual  maturity  by  demanding 
some  French  books  to  read.  The  Doctor  went 
to  the  little  "  Librairie  "  with  the  blue  sign,  in 
South  Fifth  avenue,  and  bought  a  couple  of 
volumes  of  the  Bibliotheque  Rose — the  "  Me- 
moires  d'un  Ane "  and  "  1'Auberge  de  1'Ange 
Gardien."  She  contemptuously  rejected  both  as 
childish  and  wholly  beneath  her.  She  wanted 
novels.  So  late  one  afternoon  he  made  a  solitary 
excursion  to  Brentano's. 

The  winter  was  nearly  over.  It  was  a  soft, 
moist,  slushy  day — toward  the  end  of  February. 
The  city  was  soaked  in  soiled  snow,  rapidly  melt 
ing  into  soiled  water.  The  shop  doors  were  open, 
and  through  them  came  the  rumble  of  stage- 
ridden  Broadway,  pierced  by  the  high,  shrill, 


I22  THE  MIDGE. 

humming  ring  of  the  car-wheels  on  the  rails. 
A  thin  stream  of  handsomely  dressed  women 
trickled  in,  swerved  from  counter  to  counter,  and 
trickled  out.  Here  and  there,  browsing  on  the 
fields  of  outspread  books  and  pamphlets,  were 
odd-looking  men;  men  who  would  have  been 
noticed  in  a  crowd,  each  for  some  eccentricity 
or  individuality  of  dress  or  personal  appearance ; 
men  whom  one  would  have  called  "professional," 
without  exactly  knowing  why.  In  the  "  music 
department,"  a  piano  was  pealing  forth  the  latest 
waltz,  and  a  dozen  pretty  bonneted  heads  nodded 
in  time  with  its  measure.  The  well-dressed 
clerks  moved  leisurely  about,  chatting  in  a  friendly 
way  with  old  customers.  It  did  not  look  like  a 
shop.  The  whole  thing  suggested  an  afternoon 
reception ;  and  the  clerks  carried  out  the  idea. 
They  looked  like  a  reception  committee.  The 
Doctor  felt  somewhat  as  though  he  were  in 
truding  upon  a  semi-private  social  affair.  He 
hardly  knew  which  way  to  turn,  or  how  to  go 
about  his  business  of  book-buying. 

There  was  a  pretty  young  woman  at  the  desk. 
She  had  a  sweet  and  kindly  face,  and  the  Doctor 
addressed  himself  to  her.  She  pointed  with  her 
pen  to  the  far-off  counter  where  the  French  books 
were  sold,  and  when  he  reached  it,  a  courteous 
young  Frenchman  laid  before  him  a  half  dozen 
of  the  latest  importations.  The  covers  were 
enough  for  the  Doctor. 


THE  MIDGE. 


123 


"Here!"  he  expostulated,  "this  won't  do.  I 
want  something  for  a  young  lady — pourunejeune 
fille — see  ?  This  isn't  the  sort  of  thing  at  all." 

But  the  courteous  young  Frenchman  had  been 
carried  off  by  a  group  of  rather  too  well-dressed 
men,  with  handsome,  over-fed  faces,  who  seemed 
to  be  in  search  of  just  that  "  sort  of  thing,"  in  a 
more  exalted  degree. 

"  Try  this  !  "  said  a  voice  over  his  head.  The 
Doctor  looked  up  bewildered,  and  saw  on  the  top 
of  a  small  step-ladder,  set  against  the  book 
shelves  on  the  wall,  a  broad-shouldered  young 
man  in  a  rough  tweed  suit,  with  a  cloth  traveling 
cap  on  the  side  of  his  head.  He  had  a  handsome, 
happy,  boyish  face,  with  curling  fair  hair  and  blue 
eyes,  strikingly  dark  for  his  complexion.  On 
his  upper  lip  was  what  might  some  day  be  a 
moustache,  and  under  it  he  showed,  as  he  smiled, 
white,  even  teeth.  He  looked  down  at  the  Doc 
tor  and  the  blue  eyes  laughed  with  amiable  mis 
chief.  For  a  moment  he  stood  holding  out  a 
book,  and  then  he  poised  himself  on  one  toe  and 
skipped  down  from  his  perch  much  as  a  cat  comes 
down  a  wall,  landing  almost  as  lightly. 

"  This  is  the  sort  of  thing  you  want,  I  guess, 
he  said:  "there  isn't  a  blush  in  it — perfectly 
safe."  He  handed  the  Doctor  a  copy  of  Sar- 
dou's  "  Perle  Noire,"  and  he  smiled  again  as  his 
eye  ran  over  the  volumes  that  had  been  proffered 
by  the  courteous  Frenchman. 


124 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  Pretty  hard  lot  he  gave  you,  didn't  he  ?  But 
then  French  novels  mostly  are  a  pretty  hard  lot, 
Captain." 

"  Why  do  you  call  me  Captain  ?  "  the  Doctor 
asked,  sternly.  He  felt  a  certain  irritation.  He 
would  not  have  cared  to  own  to  himself  that 
any  part  of  it  was  attributable  to  the  stranger's 
display  of  athletic,  exuberant  youth.  Yet  one 
has  to  be  a  little  older  than  the  Doctor  was  to 
look  quite  kindly  upon  a  boy  in  his  first  years 
of  spring  and  snap. 

"  Well — you  are  a  captain,  aren't  you  ?  "  laughed 
the  young  man  :  "  or  you  have  been,  anyway." 

"  Not  since  you  were  in  baby-clothes,"  returned 
the  Doctor,  grimly.  The  youth  flushed  under 
the  rebuke,  and  frankly  apologized. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  he  said ;  "  I  had  no 
right  to  be  so  fresh  with  a  man  of  your — to  talk 
like  that,  I  mean.  But  I  was  sure  you  \vere  a 
military  man,  or  had  been — I  knew  it  by  the  way 
you  carried  yourself.  I'm  in  the  navy — that  is, 
I'm  just  out  of  the  school-ship" — he  flushed 
again — "  and  I  want  to  get  transferred  to  the 
army,  if  I  can — so  you  see  I've  got  my  head  a 
little  turned  on  the  military  question." 

He  smiled,  and  the  Doctor  smiled  in  return. 

"  That's  all  right,"  he  said,  "  only  I'm  not 
accustomed  to  using  a  title.  I  was  only  a  volun 
teer  captain,  anyway,  and  colonels  and  majors  are 
so  cheap,  now  a  days,  that  a  captain  is  nowhere." 


THE  MIDGE. 


12$ 


"They  were  somewhere,  though,  when  you 
were  a  captain,"  suggested  the  boy,  with  an 
admiring  look  in  his  eyes :  "  I  wish  I'd  had  a 
chance  at  the  business  then — only  I  was  in  baby- 
clothes  ;  "  and  again  he  colored  and  laughed. 

"No,  you  don't,"  demurred  the  Doctor;  "you 
wouldn't  have  liked  it.  It  was  too — mussy. 
Did  you  tell  me  this  book  was  all  correct  and 
proper  ?  " 

"  Straight  as  a  string,  sir.  How  old — I  beg 
your  pardon — but  how  old,  about,  is  the  young 
lady  ?  I  might  find  you  something  else." 

"  Let  me  see,"  mused  the  Doctor,  aloud,  "  let 
me  see.  She  was  born  twelve  or  thirteen  years 
ago.  That'll  make  her — say  about  eighteen  or 
twenty,  now,  as  far  as  I  can  calculate." 

The  young  man  stared  in  frank  amazement. 

"You  see,"  the  Doctor  went  on,  "she's  a 
rather  peculiar  young  woman.  You  can't  tie 
her  down  to  years,  the  way  you  would  any  one 
else.  If  you  want  to  put  it  in  plain,  solid  figures, 
she's  only  twelve  or  so.  But  sometimes  I  think 
she's  a  little  older  than  I  am  myself.  I'm  not 
sure  that  I  can  get  literature  aged  enough  for 
her.  At  any  rate,  she  wants  regular  grown-up 
French  novels,  and  she's  got  to  have  them — if 
they  can  be  got  full-blown  and  respectable." 

He  checked  himself  with  a  frown.  What  was 
he  doing,  running  on  thus  like  a  garrulous  proud 
parent,  in  the  presence  of  a  perfect  stranger !  It 


THE  MIDGE. 

was  small  consolation  to  reflect  that  he  had  been 
talking  to  himself,  rather  than  to  the  stranger. 

But  the  young  man  set  things  right  with  his 
cheery,  friendly  laugh,  and  in  five  minutes  the 
two  were  ransacking  the  shop  for  virtuous  French 
fiction. 

When  their  search  was  ended,  the  afternoon 
reception  was  well-nigh  over.  In  the  streets  the 
gas-lamps  blazed  brightly  through  the  heavy 
dusk,  flickering  in  a  chill,  raw  wind  that  had  sud 
denly  come  up  from  the  East  river.  The  Doctor 
buttoned  his  coat,  but  the  young  man  seemed 
quite  comfortable  in  his  tweed  suit,  as  they 
strode  down  University  Place  together. 

He  gave  the  Doctor  his  card — "  Paul  Hatha 
way,  U.  S.  N." — and  the  Doctor,  who  had  no  card, 
imparted  his  name. 

It  was  Mr.  Paul  Hathaway's  first  card-plate, 
beyond  a  doubt.  His  giving  the  card  was  un 
necessary,  for  one  thing,  and,  for  another,  he 
took  it  out  of  a  very  new  and  very  tightly  packed 
card-case.  And  in  his  giving  of  it  there  was  a 
certain  touch  of  conscious  importance  that  be 
trayed  the  novelty  of  the  act.  The  Doctor  felt 
sure  that  he  had  the  first  card  out  of  the  hundred 
that  Brentano  had  delivered  that  afternoon. 

Mr.  Paul  Hathaway  did  all  the  talking.  He 
spoke  of  himself,  of  the  school-ship,  of  his  short 
"  leave,"  to  come  to  an  end  the  next  week,  of 
how  he  had  employed  it  in  making  sketching- 


THE  MIDGE. 


127 


tours  around  New  York — he  was  a  bad  amateur 
artist,  he  explained. 

They  parted  at  Eighth  Street,  Paul  Hathaway 
going  off  to  his  East-side  lodging ;  and  the  Doc 
tor,  as  he  looked  at  the  light  sailor-like  swaying 
of  the  broad  shoulders  vanishing  in  the  wintry 
darkness,  felt  something  of  his  first  unreasonable 
feeling  of  irritation  coming  back  to  him.  Why 
should  the  spring  go  out  of  a  man's  walk  in 
the  slipping  away  of  a  few  miserable,  unnoticed 
years  ? 

The  books  that  the  Doctor  brought  the  Midge 
that  night  were  a  mixed  lot  There  was  "  la 
Perle  Noire,"  "la  Petite  Fadette,"  "le  Roman 
d'un  Jeune  Homme  Pauvre,"  "  Paul  et  Virginie," 
Feuillet's  "Sybille,"  "un  Philosophe  sous  les 
Toits"  and  "  Elizabeth,  ou  les  Exiles  de  Siberie" 
— he  had  read,  in  his  boyhood,  "  Elisabeth,  or , 
the  Exiles  of  Siberia,"  and  he  was  pleased  to 
think,  as  he  did,  that  it  had  been  translated  into 
French. 

The  Midge  received  these  offerings  with  vary 
ing  favor.  Her  criticism  on  "  Elisabeth "  was 
decided.  She  called  it  "  rococo." 

Some  months  later,  the  Doctor  happened  to 
take  up  "  Sybille,"  and,  after  glancing  at  a  page 
or  two,  he  read  it  through.  When  he  had  read 
it  through,  he  put  it  in  the  fire.  From  that  time 
on  he  was  the  implacable  foe  of  French  fiction  in 
the  household. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE  winter  slipped  away  and  spring  was  upon 
the  land.  The  Doctor  found  trouble  in 
making  himself  believe  that  it  was  six  months 
since  his  fortress  had  been  invaded  by  the  con 
quering  queen  whose  sweetly  imperious  rule  he 
was  glad  to  own.  He  had  looked  upon  the 
time  as  a  period  of  preparation,  of  making  ready 
to  settle  down  under  the  new  order  of  things. 
It  was  only  the  green  of  the  grass  and  the  blos 
soms  on  the  trees  that  brought  to  him  a  realizing 
sense  of  the  fact  that  the  new  order  had  been 
established  long  before,  and  that  as  to  settling 
down,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  absolute  set 
tling  down  while  this  growing,  changing,  ever- 
developing  young  life  formed  a  part  of  his  own. 
He  could  never  come  to  an  understanding  with 
her,  as  he  had  come  to  an  understanding  with 
himself.  However  well  he  might  grow  to  know 
her,  her  own  highly  original  individuality  must 
take  its  own  course  of  evolution,  and  there  were 
surprises  for  him  all  along  the  course. 

Being  brought  up  with  a  round  turn  by  the 
change  of  the  seasons,  he  took  account  of  stock, 
128 


THE  MIDGE.  I2p 

after  a  fashion.  He  found  himself  best  able  to 
realize  the  changes  in  the  Midge  and  the  changes 
in  his  own  surroundings  by  considering  the 
astonishing  dimness  that  shrouded  the  past.  It 
was  hard  for  him  to  remember  that  things  had 
ever  been  otherwise  than  they  were  now.  The 
meagre  loneliness  of  his  life  seemed  something 
of  ten  or  twenty  years  back.  There  was  nothing 
in  the  Midge  to-day  to  suggest  the  pathetic 
figure  of  the  previous  December.  She  was 
rather  plump  now,  was  the  Midge;  certainly 
pretty ;  well-dressed,  with  a  contented,  comfort 
able  air  about  her  that  might  have  made  her 
uninteresting  if  it  had  not  been  for  her  inborn 
coquetry.  She  had  just  enough  whimsical  airi 
ness  to  carry  off  her  self-complacency,  which  was 
great  for  one  of  her  size. 

She  had  changed  in  other  ways,  too.  A  dis 
tinct  Frenchiness  of  idiom  was  never  to  be 
wholly  eradicated  from  her  conversation ;  but 
she  was  no  longer  positively  incorrect  in  speech, 
except  under  stress  of  excitement.  When  once 
her  pride  had  been  awakened,  she  had  put  all 
her  energy  into  the  task  of  self-improvement ; 
and  she  modeled  her  language  so  closely  on  that 
of  the  Doctor  that  he  was  obliged  to  reform  his 
own  vocabulary  and  give  heed  to  many  neglected 
subtleties  of  English  grammar. 

In  fact,  she  made  the  Doctor  her  model  to  an 
extent  that  alarmed  him.  Except  in  matters  of 
9 


130 


THE  MIDGE. 


dress  and  gastronomy,  she  adopted  him  and  all 
his  codes,  whole  and  complete.  She  had  evi 
dently  become  aware  of  the  existence  of  stand 
ards,  moral  and  social,  superior  to  those  of  her 
infant  years.  She  had  discovered  that  to  this 
new  world  into  which  she  had  come,  the  life  her 
parents  had  led  was  something  positively  ob 
jectionable.  The  feminine  mind  makes  naturally 
for  the  respectable  ;  and  the  Midge  accepted  the 
new  standards  and  secretly  felt  ashamed  of  the 
old.  When  she  spoke  of  her  parents  now,  it 
was  never  to  recount  their  vagabond  adventures ; 
she  made  pitiful  little  attempts  to  dress  them  up 
in  her  memory  as  rather  nice  and  important 
people,  emphasizing  everything  that  was  digni 
fied  and  well-bred  about  them,  and  tenderly 
covering  up  all  that  was  mean  and  poor. 

The  Doctor  was  glad  of  this.  The  rehabili 
tation  of  the  Talbot  family  amused  him,  and 
touched  his  sense  of  the  pathetic.  He  was 
glad,  further,  to  note  her  quick  acceptance  of 
his  cherished  principles  of  conduct.  He  had  a 
military  character,  in  some  things.  He  was 
scrupulously  truthful,  punctiliously  faithful  in 
the  discharge  of  duty,  exact,  prompt,  temperate, 
and  just,  as  far  as  in  him  lay.  Or  at  least  he 
tried  to  be  all  these,  and  he  made  a  fairly  good 
job  of  it  for  a  common  mortal.  And  the  child 
imitated  him  at  a  distance,  and  with  a  feminine 
difference. 


THE  MIDGE.  ^I 

But  this  very  imitation  gave  him  a  new  cause 
for  uneasiness.  Dr.  Peters  was  reasonably  well 
satisfied  with  his  moral  code.  It  had  cost  him 
enough  to  construct  it,  in  bitter  struggle  with 
temptation  and  perplexity.  He  had  tried  it ;  he 
had  lived  by  it;  and  he  knew  that,  subject  to 
frequent  revision,  and  followed  in  due  humility, 
it  was  a  good,  practicable,  working  code.  But 
back  of  the  code  was  the  making  of  all  codes, 
and  the  standard  by  which  all  codes  must  be 
judged.  And  while  in  that  regard  he  was  at 
ease,  how  was  it  with  his  charge  ?  He  had  his 
religion.  It  was  not  a  creed,  nor  a  system,  nor 
a  formula  of  any  sort.  It  was  something  com 
pounded  of  hope  and  fancy  and  speculation,  that 
satisfied  his  spiritual  cravings.  It  was  the  pri 
vate  adjustment  that  every  thinking  man  makes 
with  his  own  immortalities.  But  he  knew  that 
it  was  practically  incommunicable.  He  could 
not  write  it  out,  as  he  might  have  written  out 
his  views  on  conduct,  and  hand  the  schedule  to 
his  pupil  to  be  learned  over  night.  It  was  the 
growth  of  individual  experience  and  individual 
thought.  It  belonged  to  him,  and  to  him  alone. 

Now,  was  he  not  in  honor  bound  to  provide  a 
religion  for  the  Midge  ?  He  could  not  expect 
her  to  construct  one  for  herself.  Women,  as  far 
as  he  knew,  had  their  religions  supplied  to  them 
ready  made,  and  were  supposed  to  take  them 
without  questioning.  His  mother  had  accepted 


132 


THE  MIDGE. 


the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  If  she  had  discovered 
on  her  death-bed  that  there  was  a  fortieth  that 
should  have  been  accepted  with  the  others,  in 
the  first  instance,  and  had  been  left  out  by  mis 
take,  she  would  have  accepted  it  without  asking 
what  it  was. 

He  found  himself  facing  the  religions  of  the 
world,  and  called  upon  to  select  one  to  fit  a  child 
— one  that  she  would  not  grow  out  of;  one  that 
would  last  her  through  a  life  that  might  be  long 
or  short,  calm  or  troubled,  happy  or  miserable. 
He  was  only  a  plain  man,  who  had  been  a  medi 
cal  student,  a  civil  engineer,  a  volunteer  soldier, 
a  would-be  inventor,  and  an  amateur  doctor. 
He  felt  humbly  ignorant  and  bewildered.  He 
wished  that  he  knew  more — or  less. 

What  complicated  the  matter  was  the  consid 
eration  that,  even  if  his  conscience  would  allow 
it,  he  could  not  pick  out  a  creed  at  random  and 
present  it  to  his  charge.  He  had  never  faced 
the  great  question  which  men  in  general  prefer 
to  ignore  :  Do  women  reason  ?  He  did  not  face 
it  now.  But  he  knew  that  the  Midge  had  some 
appalling  logical  processes  among  her  intellec 
tual  functions.  And  he  reflected,  with  a  chilled 
dismay,  that  her  final  test  of  anything  which  he 
asked  her  to  believe  would  be  to  ask  him  if  he 
believed  it  himself. 

It  was  an  awkward  situation  for  the  Doctor. 
When  the  Midge  first  came  to  him,  the  necessity 


THE  MIDGE. 


133 


of  improving  her  physical  health  had  been  of 
the  first  importance.  She  was  nervous  and  fee 
ble,  and  all  his  efforts  had  been  to  the  one  end 
of  making  her  sound  and  strong.  Sunday  had 
been  their  chosen  day  for  excursions  and  open- 
air  exercise.  In  the  winter,  they  had  made  little 
trips  to  Central  Park,  or  had  taken  sleigh-rides, 
when  there  was  any  snow.  And  now  that  the 
spring  had  come,  and  was  fast  changing  to  sum 
mer,  they  had  taken  their  Sundays  to  invade 
Westchester}  Staten  Island,  and  the  suburbs  of 
Brooklyn  and  Jersey  City. 

When  he  told  her  that  these  outings,  the 
crowning  joy  of  her  week,  must  be  abandoned, 
and  that  she  must  go  to  church,  she  acqui 
esced  ;  but  her  disappointment  was  unconceal- 
able. 

He  took  her  to  the  chapel  where  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Pratt  preached.  Mr.  Pratt  was  surprised  to 
see  them  there.  He  had  always  supposed  that 
Dr.  Peters  attended  divine  service  somewhere 
up  town. 

They  went  three  times  to  Mr.  Pratt's  chapel. 
The  second  and  third  Sundays,  Dr.  Peters  noticed 
that  the  Midge's  lips  were  moving  silently 
through  all  the  time  of  service  and  sermon.  As 
soon  as  they  were  out  of  church  she  eagerly  ad 
dressed  him: 

"  Do  we  need  to  go  any  more  ?  I  know  it 
now." 


134 


THE  MIDGE. 


"Know  what?"  demanded  the  Doctor. 

"All  those  things  they  say.  It  is  the  same 
every  Sunday.  I  have  learned  them  all  by  heart 
— I  will  say  them  to  you,  and  you  can  see." 

"  But  they  aren't  the  same  thing  every  time, 
Midge.  The  lessons  are  different,  and  so  is  the 
collect." 

"  Well,  we  can  read  those  at  home.  I  will 
learn  those,  too,  if  you  want." 

"  But  the  sermon  's  different.  Mr.  Pratt  has  a 
new  sermon  every  Sunday." 

"  Oh,  Mis-ter  Pratt !  "  she  returned,  with  inno 
cent  scorn ;  "  do  you  care  what  he  says,  Ev-ert  ? 
He  is  no  priest — Elise  has  told  me  so." 

Further  investigation  convinced  the  Doctor 
that  the  Midge  would  never  receive  the  ministra 
tions  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  in  a  proper  spirit. 
She  had  disliked  him  at  their  first  meeting,  and 
she  had  since  learned  the  opinion  held  of  him  in 
the  quarter,  where  he  was  looked  upon  as  an 
elegant  amateur  of  religion,  not  to  be  mentioned 
in  the  same  breath  with  faithful,  conscientious 
Father  Dube,  or  even  with  energetic,  soul-amas 
sing  Brother  Strong,  of  the  Bethel. 

They  went  no  more  to  the  chapel,  and  the 
outings  began  again ;  but  on  rainy  Sundays  the 
Doctor  slipped  out  by  himself  about  eleven 
o'clock,  each  day  visiting  a  new  church,  and 
listening  attentively  to  the  prayers  and  the  preach- 
He  heard,  in  the  course  of  that  summer  and 


THE  MIDGE. 


135 


the  ensuing  fall,  a  great  deal  of  very  interesting 
discourse;  but  he  did  not  come  across  any  variety 
of  religious  instruction  that  seemed  to  him  to  fit 
the  Midge's  case. 

In  the  autumn  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  was  beginning  his  search  at  the  wrong  end. 
The  Midge  was,  after  all,  a  child,  and  she  needed 
the  education  of  a  child.  He  sent  her  to  the 
Sunday-school  of  the  chapel. 

The  Sunday-school  scheme  was  a  complete 
failure ;  but  it  brought  about  a  better  understand 
ing.  After  the  second  Sunday  of  attendance,  the 
Midge  revolted,  and  vigorously. 

"  It  is  a  nonsense,  Ev-ert,"  she  said,  excitedly; 
"  vois-tu,\hey  have  given  me  this  little  yellow  thing 
to  learn  " — and  she  held  up  a  printed  text — "  and  I 
can  learn  ten  hundred  of  those  in  a  day.  And 
they  have  told  me  such  histories ! — of  an  old  man 
who  is  mocked  of  the  little  boys,  and,  figure-toi, 
there  are  bears  come  out  of  a  forest  and  eat  them 
up !  Is  it  that  I  am  a  child,  to  be  told  such 
stories  like  that  ?  " 

"  Oh,  Lord  !  "  groaned  the  Doctor,  "  why,  that 
was  Elijah — or  Elisha — I  forget  which.  Why, 
he  was  a  prophet." 

"  I  do  not  know  what  was  his  business  ;  but  he 
had  no  hair.  And  I  am  not  a  little  boy  who  is 
rude  to  old  gentlemen.  Why  do  they  tell  me 
such  stories  ?  " 

"  My  dear,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  you  needn't  go 


THE  MIDGE. 

to  the  Sunday-school  any  more.  I'm  going  to 
take  this  business  in  hand  myself.  It  seems  to 
be  laid  out  for  me  to  do  work  out  of  my  line,  and 
I'm  going  to  stumble  right  on." 

He  got  down  from  his  bookshelf  his  mother's 
Bible,  which  stood  between  "  Gummere's  Sur 
veying  "  and  "  Peveril  of  the  Peak,"  and  that  day 
he  began  a  course  of  readings  from  the  Scrip 
tures,  accompanied  with  comment  and  criticism 
of  a  varied  and  often  original  nature,  remembered 
tradition  struggling  uncertainly  within  dependent 
thought. 

The  Midge  was  interested  at  last.  She  was 
always  willing  to  sit  on  the  ground,  with  her 
head  on  hi.s  knee,  and  to  listen  wisely  to  his  read 
ing  and  to  his  remarks. 

Her  ingrained  skepticism  led  her  to  ask  for  his 
personal  confirmation  of  the  story  of  Eve  and  the 
serpent. 

"My  dear,"  he  answered,  gravely,  "we  can't 
tell  people  to  believe  things,  or  not  to  believe. 
Everybody  has  to  act  for  himself  or  herself.  My 
mother  died  believing  every  word  of  this,  from 
cover  to  cover.  I'm  in  a  sort  of  a  mixed  condi 
tion,  myself.  When  you  get  older — the  subject 
is  a  little  extensive  for  you,  just  at  present — you 
can  form  your  own  conclusions,  and  I'll  try  my 
best  to  help  you.  Just  now,  all  that  you  and  I 
have  got  to  do  is  to  get  all  the  good  we  can  out 
of  it.  As  to  the  serpent — well,  some  people  have 


THE  MIDGE. 

said  that  this  is  a  sort  of  a  fable,  as  it  were ;  and 
they  say  the  moral  is  that  a  young  woman  may 
sometimes  know  too  much,  or  think  she  does." 
The  Midge  was  silent. 

#  *  #  #  5(C 

It  was  a  soft  September  day,  and  the  foliage  in 
the  parks  was  just  beginning  to  thin  out  and  look 
pale  in  the  warm  sunlight,  when  Dr.  Peters, 
crossing  Washington  Square,  found  Father 
Dube  sitting  on  a  bench,  with  a  smile  on  his 
round  face  as  he  watched  a  small  flock  of  brown 
birds  hopping  and  tumbling  about  a  crust  of 
bread. 

"  Hello,  Dube !  "  he  hailed  his  friend,  "  I  didn't 
know  you  ever  loafed." 

"  But  I  do,"  said  the  priest,  his  smile  growing 
kinder,  though  it  was  not  a  cheerful  smile,  "  I  am 
capable  not  only  of  loafing,  but  of  idle  thoughts. 
I  have  been  wishing  that  I  were  a  sparrow." 

"  I  don't  wish  you  were  a  sparrow,"  rejoined 
the  Doctor,  sitting  down  on  the  bench  beside 
him,  "  for  I  want  to  ask  your  advice,  and  I'm  not 
asking  advice  of  sparrows." 

"  I  am  not  a  sparrow,"  said  Father  Dube,  his 
smile  fading  out ;  "  I  am  a  priest,  and  I  will  give 
advice  to  any  one  who  wants  it.  That  is  what  I 
am  here  for.  Sometimes  I  think  that  it  is  all  I 
am  good  for." 

"  I  hope  you  are  good  for  my  case,"  the  Doc 
tor  began ;  and  he  went  on  to  tell  the  story  of  his 


138 


THE  MIDGE. 


perplexity  and  his  audacious  attempt  to  solve  the 
problem  for  himself. 

"  I  don't  know  just  what  I  want  you  to  say," 
he  concluded,  "  and  I  don't  suppose  there's  any 
thing  you  can  say,  but  one  thing.  But  if  you've 
got  any  light  on  the  subject,  I  wish  you'd  shed 
it  for  the  benefit  of  a  humble  heretic.  You  and 
I  don't  talk  quite  the  same  language  ;  but  I  guess 
you  can  sort  of  make  signs  that  I  can  understand." 

Father  Dube  clasped  one  knee  with  his  locked 
hands,  and  looked  hard  at  the  sparrows.  There 
was  a  shade  of  depression  on  his  face,  and  he 
spoke  slowly  and  in  a  tone  of  sad  gentleness. 

"  I  suppose  you  think  you  know  what  I  will 
say.  Eh  ?  That  is  it  ?  '  Make  her  a  Catholic.' 
Well,  no,  I  do  not  say  it." 

He  paused  for  a  moment. 

"  You  cannot  make  her  a  good  Catholic,  while 
she  is  under  your  influence ;  while  she  believes 
in  you.  You  can  not  make  her  a  member  of  the 
Church  of  England.  You  know  it.  It  is  impos 
sible.  You  can  make  her  go  to  the  altar,  and 
say  her  prayers — but  you  know  that  that  is  not 
religion,  if  her  heart  is  not  there.  For  an  intel 
ligent  person,  that  is  worse  than  no  religion  at 
all.  The  worst  enemy  of  the  Church  is  he  who 
kisses  the  cross  and  doubts  in  his  heart." 

The  priest's  tone  was  stern,  almost  severe ; 
but  it  changed  to  genial  tenderness  as  he  turned 
to  the  Doctor  and  laid  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 


THE  MIDGE. 


139 


"  It  is  God  who  makes  Catholics — it  is  not 
Dr.  Peters  or  Father  Dube.  Leave  it  to  Him. 
Perhaps  you  do  not  believe  in  Him  ?  I  do  not 
know.  I  have  known  you  many  years ;  but  I  do 
not  know  your  thoughts.  I  know  your  heart, 
however  ;  and  what  you  have  told  me — that  is 
all  right.  Go  on — teach  her  what  you  know — 
make  her  a  good  woman.  That  is  all  you  can 
do.  Do  not  try  to  do  more.  You  will  not  do  it 
well." 

He  rose,  and  clasping  his  hands  behind  him 
spoke  with  suppressed  excitement. 

"  My  friend,  it  is  not  every  one  who  shall  say 
to  himself:  '  I  shall  serve.'  Look  at  me.  I  am 
sixty  years  old,  and  I  am  a  mistake."  He  looked 
Dr.  Peters  straight  in  the  eye.  "  When  I  was 
young,  I  thought  I  had  a  vocation  for  the  priest 
hood.  I  was  full  of  enthusiasm.  I  had  read  of 
the  martyrs,  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Church.  I 
said :  I  too,  I  will  serve  her.  Well — it  is  now 
forty  years,  and  I  know  that  I  had  no  vocation. 
I  had  only  ambition.  I  am  of  a  nature  that  is 
not  fit  for  a  priest.  I  love  my  ease,  I  indulge 
myself.  I  am  tired.  I  could  not  be  tired  if  I 
had  been  called  to  my  work.  Look  you,  Peters 
— me,  a  priest  of  God — it  is  distasteful  to  me  to 
go  among  these  poor  and  ignorant — my  heart  is 
not  in  my  work." 

"  You  manage  to  control  your  distaste  pretty 
well,"  said  the  Doctor,  warmly.  "  Don't  talk  in 


140 


THE  MIDGE. 


that  way  about  yourself.  I  know  what  you  do 
for  those  people." 

"  I  do  my  work ;  but  another  would  do  it 
better.  They  like  me,  yes  ;  because  I  am  easy 
with  them.  They  know  I  have  not  the  heart  to 
be  stern.  They  can  put  me  off  with  any  story. 
Anything  is  good  enough  for  old  Dube.  It  is 
not  men  like  me  who  represent  the  dignity  and 
authority  of  the  Church.  There  is  Father  Quin- 
lan  " — he  pointed  across  the  square — "  they  re 
spect  him'' 

Quinlan  was  the  priest  of  a  neighboring  parish. 

"  Quinlan's  a  brute,  begging  his  pardon,"  said 
the  Doctor. 

"  But  they  fear  him,  they  respect  him,"  re 
peated  the  old  man,  stubbornly.  He  was  silent 
for  a  moment,  and  then  he  broke  forth  again, 
with  uncontrollable  vehemence. 

"  I  am  a  soldier  of  the  Church — yes.  But 
what  am  I  for  a  soldier  ?  I  am  a  sentinel — put 
out  far  in  the  forest.  What  do  I  see  of  Her 
victories,  of  Her  grandeur,  of  Her  glory  ?  What 
have  I  done  for  Her  ?  " 

His  kind  old  face  was  drawn  with  lines  of  pain. 
He  looked  upward,  as  if  for  some  answer  from 
the  skies.  After  a  moment,  he  came  to  himself 
with  a  heavy  sigh. 

"  This  is  all  wrong,  of  course,"  he  said.  "  You 
wonder  that  I  should  speak  so  to  you — to  you 
who  are  not  of  the  Church.  Well,  you  can 


THE  MIDGE. 


141 


understand  me  better  than  some  who  are  of  the 
Church.  I  have  done  wrong,  however.  And 
you  came  to  ask  me  for  advice.  Well,  I  have 
given  it.  Good-bye,  my  friend." 

He  stalked  solemnly  away,  his  head  bent,  his 
hands  clasped  behind  him ;  the  autumn  sunlight 
falling  on  him  as  he  walked  down  the  avenue  of 
trees. 

When  the  Doctor  reached  home,  the  Midge 
was  at  the  sitting-room  window. 

"  I  saw  you  and  Father  Dube  in  the  square," 
she  observed:  "you  were  talking  a  great  deal. 
What  was  it  about  ?  " 

"  Oh,  all  sorts  of  things,  Midge,"  he  replied : 
"  vocation,  and  religion,  and  human  error,  and 
various  things." 

The  Midge  meditated  briefly. 

"  Ev-ert,"  she  said,  "  if  you  want  me  to,  I  will 
be  a  Catholic.  But  it  is  a  nonsense." 

"  I  don't  think  it's  necessary,  my  dear." 

"Well,  what  do  you  want  that  I  shall  be, 
then  ?  " 

The  Doctor  crossed  the  room,  and,  taking  her 
face  between  his  hands,  lifted  it  up,  so  that  he 
could  look  into  her  eyes.  Then  he  asked : 

"  Midge,  do  you  love  me  ?  " 

"  You  know  I  do ! "  she  answered,  opening 
her  eyes. 

"  Right  clean  through,  honest  and  true  ?  " 

"Why,  Ev-ert — you  know  Yes." 


142 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  And  you're  going  to  be  a  good  girl  ?  " 
"  Yes,"  she  assented,  in  opened-eyed  wonder. 
The  Doctor  looked  at  her  long  and  earnestly. 
*  Well,"  he  said  at  last,  "  I  guess  you  are." 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  fall  went,  and  winter  came,  and  Decem 
ber,  and  it  was  a  year  since  the  Midge  had 
entered  the  apartments  of  Dr.  Peters.  Then 
another  year  went  by,  and  another,  and  a  fourth 
Christmas  came.  Late  on  Christmas  Eve  he 
slipped  a  gold  watch  and  a  huge  package  of 
candy  into  her  slim,  blue  stocking,  that  swung 
from  the  sitting-room  mantle.  He  scowled  as 
he  tried  to  think  that  he  and  the  Midge  were 
three  years  older. 

"Ain't  either,"  he  soliloquized  ;  "not  so  far  as 
I'm  concerned.  I'm  three  years  younger,  if  I'm 
anything." 

But  he  glanced  ruefully  at  the  long  stocking. 

"  She  grows,"  he  thought 

Their  life  was  so  regular  and  uneventful  that 
they  marked  the  movement  of  time  only  by  the 
record  of  the  calendar — the  annual  holidays  and 
the  changes  of  the  seasons.  Yet  the  Midge  was 
undoubtedly  growing.  She  now  wrote  and  spelled 
French  and  English  so  well  that  she  could  never 
have  passed  for  a  girl  educated  in  a  fashionable 
school.  She  haci  begun  to  make  obscure  refer- 


144 


THE  MIDGE. 


ences  to  a  serious  and  impending  future  of  "long 
dresses."  Her  hair  no  longer  hung  down  her 
neck.  It  was  braided  into  two  neat  tails,  which 
were  spliced  together  with  effective  ribbons,  and 
these  tails  displayed  a  tendency  to  crawl  up 
into  a  coil  on  the  back  of  her  head.  Once  or 
twice,  even,  the  coil  had  given  place  to  a  loose 
knot.  But  the  appearances  of  the  knot  were 
only  tentative,  so  far. 

Her  education  was  getting  to  that  dangerous 
point  of  ambitious  beginning  when  young  ladies' 
educations  are  generally  "  finished."  She  was 
studying  painting  and  music.  It  was  good  old 
Parker  Prout  who  taught  her  the  art  of  Nassau 
Street.  Somebody  once  said  of  Parker  Prout 
that  he  succeeded  as  a  teacher  because  he  also 
served  his  pupils  as  an  Awful  Example.  Prout 
came  twice  a  week,  and,  under  his  tuition,  the 
Midge  learned  to  paint  water-colors,  touching  in 
their  simplicity  of  composition  and  their  free  use 
of  the  primary  colors.  Her  skies  were  blue,  her 
trees  were  green  and  her  sun  was  yellow  when 
it  was  not  red;  and  you  could  always  tell  just 
where  one  thing  left  off  and  another  began,  in 
her  pictures.  She  was  very  well  satisfied  with 
them,  and  so  was  the  Doctor.  He  said  they 
indicated  the  possession  of  a  cheerful  dispo 
sition. 

Other  twice  a  week  came  Professor  Max 
Mannheim,  who  tortured  himself  into  paroxysms 


THE  MIDGE.  l^ 

of  harmless  rage  in  trying  to  teach  her  to  play 
the  piano. 

"  Du  lieber  Gott  in  Himmel ! "  he  would  shriek : 
"  Iss  dot  a  chordt  off  A  ?  Wat  shall  you  do  if  you 
shall  not  sink  ?  I  do  not  esk  zet  you  hef  fing-erss — 
I  do  not  esk  zet  you  hef  armss — I  do  not  esk  zet 
you  hef  hentss — bot  play  mit  ze  kray  metter  off 
your  prain — only  once!  La,  la,  la!" — with  a 
staccato  hammering  of  three  of  the  piano  keys, 
as  though  he  had  the  obstinate  gray  matter  of 
the  Midge's  brain  under  his  wiry  fingers.  The 
Midge,  herself,  merely  smiled  on  him  in  amiable 
calm,  either  recognizing  in  all  this  a  form  of 
vehement  patience,  or  accepting  it  as  something 
inseparable  from  the  inculcation  of  the  art  of 
music.  After  the  hour  of  turmoil  was  over,  they 
were  good  friends,  and  the  Professor  frequently 
took  her  to  afternoon  concerts,  where  Dr.  Peters 
could  not  have  been  dragged  with  ox-chains. 
She  liked  the  concerts  fairly  well,  especially 
when  they  ran  to  what  the  Professor  called 
the  "  tresh "  of  Strauss  and  Waldteufel  and 
Abt. 

In  these  three  years  the  Midge  had  become  a 
sturdy  young  thing,  not  tall — that  she  never 
would  be — but  plump  and  mature  of  figure  for  a- 
girl  in  her  sixteenth  year.  Nor  did  her  water- 
colors  belie  her  disposition,  for  she  was  cheerful 
and  contented,  and  her  youthful  vivacity  was 
apparently  undimmed  by  any  consciousness  that 
10 


146 


THE  MIDGE. 


she  had  no  friends  or  associates  under  forty  years 
of  age. 

It  was  in  the  fourth  spring  of  her  stay  that  the 
Doctor  noted  a  puzzling  change  in  her.  She 
began  to  moult,  as  he  put  it.  Her  health  was 
excellent;  but  there  was  a  marked  diminution 
in  her  usually  large  fund  of  energy  and  enthusi 
asm.  She  seemed  to  lose  her  interest  in  their 
long  walks,  and  in  their  Sunday  rambles.  She 
preferred  to  sit  at  home  and  read,  or  at  least  she 
said  she  did.  After  a  while  he  noticed  that  when 
she  had  a  book  in  her  hand  she  was  not  always 
reading. 

The  Doctor's  affectionate  diagnosis  of  the  case 
was  wholly  unsatisfactory.  He  felt  that  she  had 
something  on  her  mind ;  but  delicate  questioning 
and  gentle  overtures  to  confidential  communion 
brought  him  no  nearer  to  rinding  out  what  the 
something  was.  As  time  went  on,  she  became 
fickle  of  mood.  Sometimes  she  fairly  purred 
in  kitten-like  felicity.  And  the  next  day  she 
would  "  moult "  again.  "  I  know  the  world  is 
hollow,"  thought  the  Doctor,  "but  she  can't  have 
found  it  out  yet.  That  comes  later." 

One  day  he  found  her  crying,  and  he  demanded 
an  explanation.  She  gave  him  none,  but  slipped 
silently  out  of  his  grasp  and  went  into  her  own 
room.  It  was  the  first  time  that  she  had  ever 
been  anything  but  gentle  and  submissive  to  him. 
He  refrained  from  following  her ;  but  he  made 


THE  MIDGE. 


147 


up  his  mind  that  radical  remedial  measures  were 
in  order ;  and  in  a  manner  it  eased  his  mind  to 
reflect  that  the  extravagance  of  this  manifesta 
tion  made  it  almost  certain  that  there  was  a 
physical  cause  for  her  morbid  state  of  mind. 
"  Malaria,  I  believe,"  he  pondered :  "  I  suppose 
that  means  moving  up  town.  Something's  got 
to  be  done,  and  right  now.  She'd  never  act 
in  that  way  if  she  wasn't  sick.  Malaria,  for 
certain.  I  presume  I'd  have  had  it,  living  in 
this  region,  if  I  ever  had  anything — except  an 
appetite." 

But  he  had  a  greater  shock  before  him  than 
the  discovery  of  malaria.  An  hour  later  the 
Midge  came  gravely  and  sadly  from  her  room 
and  stood  in  front  of  him,  lifting  a  face  painfully 
set  and  old  for  a  child  of  sixteen. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  went  away  from  you  like  that," 
she  said,  gently.  "  I  did  not  mean  to  be — not 
nice.  But  I  was  feeling  very  badly.  I  was  making 
up  my  mind." 

"  Making  up  your  mind? "  he  repeated,  smiling. 

"  Yes.     I  want  to  go  away." 

"  To  go  away !     Where  ?  " 

She  stood  with  her  hands  hanging  down  by 
her  sides,  and  her  figure  drooped  as  though  she 
were  tired. 

"  I  do  not  know.  That  we  must  find  out. 
Some  place — some  asylum,  or  some  place  where 
I  can  do  some  work." 


148 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  Midge ! "  the  Doctor  cried,  "  what  do  you 
mean  ?  " 

She  threw  up  her  hands  with  a  nervous  gesture 
and  drew  a  quick  breath  of  pain. 

"  No,  I  know  what  you  will  say  !  But  I  can 
not  stay  here  more.  I  know  it — I  did  not  know 
it  once  ;  but  I  know  it  now — it  is  all  wrong.  I 
have  no  right  to  be  here.  I  am  no  relation  to 
you — I  am  nobody  at  all.  You  have  just  found 
me,  and  I  have  made  you  take  care  of  me  because 
you  are  too  good  to  send  me  away.  I  have  been 
selfish,  and  I  have  taken  it  all ;  but  I  knew  not 
better  when  I  came  here.  I  was  ignorant.  Now 
I  know,  and  I  will  be  selfish  no  longer.  I  will  go 
away — no  !  no ! — you  shall  not  tell  me  to  stay. 
It  is  not  right  that  I  stay.  You  must  let  me  go  !  " 

The  Doctor  had  a  fleeting  vision  of  the  room 
as  it  had  looked  on  the  night  when  the  Midge 
first  entered  it,  and  of  the  pitiful  little  form  in  the 
long  black  waterproof.  It  gave  him  a  shock  to 
connect  that  picture  with  the  girl  who  stood  now 
on  nearly  the  same  spot.  He  reached  out  and 
put  his  hands  on  her  shoulders,  though  at  first 
she  shrank  a  little  from  his  grasp. 

"  Midge,"  he  said,  holding  her  firmly  and  speak 
ing  with  slow  decision,  "  you  can  go  away  if  you 
want  to.  If  you  are  tired  of  living  here — " 

"Ah!  no." 

"  If  you  feel  that  you  have  got  to  go,  I  won't 
hinder  you.  You  can  do  as  you  please." 


THE  MIDGE. 


149 


Her  lips  closed  tightly,  and  her  face  grew 
whiter. 

"  But,  look  here  !  I  want  you  to  understand 
one  thing.  You  may  go — but  if  you  go,  I  go 
too.  Do  you  understand  that  ?  Wherever  you 
go,  I'm  going  too — see  ?  " 

A  queer  little  cry  came  from  her.  It  was 
almost  joyous,  yet  it  seemed  to  have  a  sob  be 
hind  it. 

"  My  dear  child,"  he  went  on,  holding  her 
tighter  as  again  she  shrunk  away,  "  let's  settle 
this  thing  once  for  all.  You  don't  appear  to 
know  that  you're  talking  right  down  wickedly. 
What's  the  use  of  telling  me  that  you  don't  be 
long  to  me  ?  You  do  !  What  would  I  do  with 
out  you  ?  I  couldn't  get  along — you  ought  to 
know  that.  You  aren't  under  any  obligations  to 
me — I'm  under  obligations  to  you.  That's  the 
way  it  stands.  Now,  just  look  at  the  matter 
reasonably.  I'm  an  old  man — " 

"  You  are  not  an  old  man  !  "  she  broke  in;  "I 
will  not  have  you  call  yourself  an  old  man.  You 
are  forty-four  years  and  seven  months  old.  That 
is  not  old  !  That  is  nothing." 

"  It's  something,  my  dear,"  he  said,  staring 
into  vacancy  over  her  head.  "  I'm  too  old  to 
make  new  friends.  Now,  you're  my  best  friend. 
You  aren't  any  relation  of  mine — that's  true.  But 
you're  a  good  deal  more  to  me  than  any  relation 
I  ever  had,  and  I'm  going  to  hang  on  to  you  and 


150 


THE  MIDGE. 


keep  you  and  own  you,  do  you  grasp  that  fact  ? 
So  don't  you  ever  talk  again  about  leaving  me, 
unless  you  want  to  make  me  talk  to  you  pretty 
seriously.  You  hear  that  ?  " 

She  heard  it  in  silence.  He  took  her  on  his 
lap  and  set  to  work  to  reason  it  out  He  told 
her  that  he  had  no  kindred  who  had  claims  upon 
him,  that  he  was  free  to  do  as  he  liked  with  his 
own,  that  his  income,  though  it  was  not  extrava 
gantly  large,  was  more  than  he  could  ever  spend 
upon  himself — more  than  sufficient  for  both  of 
them.  She  listened,  and  yielded  gently,  almost 
wearily.  There  was  a  trace  of  something  like 
humiliation  in  her  manner,  however,  as  she  sat 
with  bowed  head  and  heard  him  patiently.  But 
in  the  end  she  gave  the  promise  he  required  of 
her,  never  to  mention  the  subject  again,  and  to 
put  the  thought  out  of  her  mind,  as  far  as  pos 
sible. 

When  this  was  done,  and  the  Doctor's  mind 
was  relieved,  he  wanted  to  go  on  with  a  few 
further  comments  and  reflections,  gathering  up 
the  loose  ends  of  their  talk ;  but  she  showed  a 
distinct  desire  to  close  the  conversation,  and  left 
her  place  upon  his  knee  to  prepare  the  table 
for  dinner,  for  the  afternoon  was  passing  into 
evening. 

Afterward  she  went  to  her  room.  She  always 
made  some  pleasing  and  significant  change  in 
her  attire  for  the  evening  meal.  The  Doctor  was 


THE  MIDGE.  1$1 

striding  up  and  down  the  room,  after  his  fashion, 
when  she  suddenly  emerged.  Her  listless  fatigued 
manner  had  gone ;  she  was  tremulous,  tearful  and 
excited,  and  she  threw  herself  upon  him,  binding 
him  in  her  arms  with  a  violent  eagerness. 

"  I  have  been  wrong,"  she  cried;  "yes,  I  have 
been  wrong  to  you.  I  have  been  ungrateful,  and 
I  have  pained  you.  I  did  not  mean  it.  I  do  not 
want  to  go  away  from  you.  I  will  never  go 
away  from  you  unless  you  want  me  to.  You 
have  not  understood  me.  I  have  been  wrong ; 
but  you  have  not  understood  me.  I  only  mean 
to  do  what  you  would  have  me.  Yes,  I  do  belong 
to  you,  Evert,  I  will  do  whatever  you  say,  now 
and  always.  If  you  ever  say  to  me  go,  I  will  go ; 
and  if  you  say  to  me  stay,  I  will  stay.  I  want 
you  to  hear  me,  Evert.  Always,  always,  always  ! 
I  will  do  just  what  you  say.  Always  I  will  do 
just  what  you  want.  You  can  tell  me  nothing 
that  I  will  not  do — and  I  will  be  glad,  if  you  say 
it.  Do  you  know  that,  Evert  ?  " 

She  trembled  convulsively  as  she  clung  to  him. 
He  saw  that  she  was  agitated  beyond  the  limit 
of  her  childish  strength,  and  he  soothed  her  with 
all  possible  gentleness,  until  the  wild  excitement 
gave  place  to  unnerved  exhaustion,  and  she  let 
herself  be  petted  and  caressed  like  a  baby. 

He  scarcely  understood  it  all;  but  he  made 
certain  that  she  needed  fatherly  care  and  tonic 
medicines,  and  for  weeks  thereafter  she  had  both, 


152 


THE  MIDGE. 


administered  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  It  was 
some  time  before  the  treatment  showed  good 
effects ;  but  by  midsummer  he  saw  with  pride 
that  she  had  been  brought  back  to  sanity,  and  he 
discontinued  the  use  of  the  tonic  medicines ; 
though  he  relaxed  nothing  in  his  fatherly  care. 

They  went  out  of  town  a  good  deal  during  the 
summer,  making  little  trips  to  the  Catskills  and 
to  the  Jersey  coast,  spending  a  few  days  at  a 
time  in  these  airings.  He  did  not  feel  that  he 
could  afford  to  give  more,  for  he  had  got  to  work 
upon  the  sewing-machine  improvement;  and, 
besides,  he  was  always  needed  in  the  quarter — 
although  he  was  not  called  upon  so  often  as  he 
had  been  in  earlier  days.  There  seemed  to  be  a 
general  understanding  among  the  poor  people 
that  he  was  now  a  man  of  family,  and  that  his 
time  was  no  longer  wholly  at  their  service.  Yet 
he  went  among  them  often,  and  sometimes,  now, 
the  Midge  went  with  him,  and  she  showed  a 
creditable  readiness  and  intelligence  as  a  nurse. 

They  had  a  way  of  dining  out,  once  in  a  while, 
to  break  the  monotony  of  a  long  succession  of 
household  repasts.  One  fine  day  in  November, 
Elise  wanted  to  go  to  Hoboken,  to  the  christen 
ing  of  her  cousin's  ninth  child,  and  they  were 
glad  to  let  her  off,  and  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
excuse  to  go  forth  and  take  their  dinner  in  a 
restaurant. 


THE  MIDGE. 


'S3 


It  was  a  true  day  of  Indian  Summer — summer 
surely  enough,  although  its  radiance  rested  on 
bare  trees  and  grass  out  of  which  the  life  had 
faded ;  and  though  the  cool  blue  of  the  higher 
sky,  and  the  soft  haze  on  the  horizon,  seen  down 
the  long  vista  of  the  city  street,  gave  no  sug 
gestion  of  summer's  sensuous  languors. 

The  day  before,  the  Midge  had  celebrated  her 
sixteenth  birthday,  and  they  agreed  to  regard 
this  dinner  as  an  extension  and  continuation  of 
the  celebration. 

It  was  a  modest  feast — only  a  plain  table- 
d'hote  dinner,  eaten  in  the  heart  of  the  quarter,  at 
a  cost  of  half-a-dollar  apiece.  They  had  tried 
more  elaborate  dinners,  at  the  great  hotels  up 
town  ;  but  they  preferred  the  simpler  joys  of 
Charlemagne's  restaurant.  They  both  possessed 
that  element  of  Bohemianism  which  belongs  to 
all  good  fellows — the  Midge  was  a  good  fellow, 
as  well  as  the  Doctor. 

Charlemagne's  is  a  thing  of  the  past ;  but  he 
was  a  jolly  king  of  cheap  eating-house  keepers 
while  he  lasted.  He  gave  a  grand  and  whole 
some  dinner  for  fifty  cents.  The  first  items  were 
the  pot-au-fcu  and  bouilli.  If  the  pot-au-feu  was 
thin,  the  bouilli  was  so  much  the  richer.  And  if 
the  bouilli  was  something  woodeny,  why,  you  had 
had  all  the  better  pot-au-feu  before  it.  Then  came 
an  entree — calves'  brains,  perhaps,  or  the  like  ;  a 
roti,  a  vegetable  or  so  coming  with  it ;  a  good 


154 


THE  MIDGE. 


salad,  chiccory  or  lettuce  or  plantain,  a  dessert  of 
timely  fruits,  a  choice  of  excellent  cheese,  and  a 
cup  of  honest  black  coffee.  And  with  all  this 
you  got  bread  ad  libitum  and  a  half  bottle  of 
drinkable  wine,  that  had  never  paid  duty,  for  it 
came  from  California,  though  it  called  itself  Bor 
deaux.  And  if  you  were  inclined  to  extravagant 
luxury,  you  might  respond  to  the  invitation  of 
the  small  placards  on  the  wall,  and  "  Ask  for  the 
Little  Pot."  And,  having  asked  for  the  little  pot, 
you  got  a  tiny  china  cup,  shaped  like  a  pipkin, 
which  held  two  or  three  brandied  cherries,  steep 
ing  in  their  luscious  juice.  It  cost  you  ten  cents 
more,  and  it  gave  a  dollar's  worth  of  flavor  to 
your  demi-tasse  of  coffee. 

It  was  not  aristocratic,  M.  Charlemagne's  little 
place  in  Houston  Street ;  the  table-cloths  were 
coarser  than  the  wrappings  of  Egyptian  mum 
mies  ;  there  was  little  to  show  that  the  spoons 
and  forks  had  ever  been  plated ;  there  was  no 
ceremony  among  the  diners,  and  shirt-sleeves 
were  always  en  regie.  And  the  great  bowl  of 
soup  was  passed  around  that  every  guest  might 
help  himself,  much  as  it  might  have  been  done  in 
the  time  of  the  proprietor's  namesake.  But 
everything  was  clean,  and  all  things  were  decent 
and  well-ordered  within  that  respectable  resort. 
Poor  French  clerks  and  saving  French  tradesmen 
mostly  frequented  it.  Now  and  then  there  was 
a  table-full  of  newspaper  men,  actors,  artists  and 


THE  MIDGE. 


155 


unclassified  Bohemians,  who  atoned  for  their 
uncontrollable  noisiness  by  amusing  all  the  graver 
patrons  of  the  house  with  their  ready  mirth  and 
ephemeral  wit,  always  generously  loud  enough  to 
be  at  the  service  of  the  whole  room. 

Madame  Charlemagne,  holding  the  pot-au-fcu 
breast-high,  hailed  the  Doctor  and  the  Midge  as 
they  entered,  and  called  upon  M.  Charlemagne 
to  find  seats  for  them. 

M.  Charlemagne,  rotund  and  jovial,  with  the 
air  of  a  comic  cook  in  an  opera  bouffe,  showed 
them  to  the  little  table  between  the  fire-place  and 
the  window. 

There  was  one  other  person  already  at  the 
table — a  young  man.  Looking  up  after  his  soup, 
it  struck  the  Doctor  that  he  had  seen  the  young 
man  before,  somewhere.  He  had  only  a  vague 
sense  of  knowing  the  broad  shoulders,  the  bright 
young  face  and  the  moustache  that  was  still  as 
small  as  anything  can  be  that  has  a  right  to  be 
called  a  moustache.  The  young  man,  with  the 
color  of  confusion  in  his  cheeks,  directed  toward 
the  Doctor  a  smile  of  recognition  and  toward  the 
Doctor's  companion  a  look  of  awkward  apology. 
Dr.  Peters  felt  sure  he  had  seen  him  before.  He 
would  have  contented  himself  with  a  nod  in 
acknowledgment ;  but  the  ingenuous  embarrass 
ment  in  the  young  face  appealed  to  his  sympathy. 

"I  think  I've  met  you  before — "  he  began, 
doubtfully. 


156 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  Oh,  yes,  in — that  is,  I  think  so — don't  you 
remember  ?  One  afternoon,  two  or  three  years 
ago — you  were  buying  French  books — for  a 
young  lady."  He  added  this  last  clause  with 
impulsive  eagerness,  and  then  blushed  furiously. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  the  Doctor,  "  I  remember,  I 
remember  now.  In  the  navy,  eh  ?  But  your 
name  has  slipped  me." 

"  Hathaway,"  returned  the  young  man, 
promptly;  "  Paul  Hathaway.  That  was  just 
before  I  sailed  for  South  America.  We  had 
quite  a  talk  together,  don't  you  recollect." 

"  Why,  yes,"  said  the  Doctor,  beginning  to 
recall  some  of  the  results  of  that  talk,  in  the 
way  of  purchase  of  French  literature. 

"  I  hope,"  the  young  man  boldly  pushed  on, 
"  I  hope  you  liked  the  books  you  bought.  Were 
they  what  you  wanted?  " 

He  glanced  furtively  at  the  Midge,  who  was 
eating  her  bouilli  very  daintily,  and  utterly  ig 
noring  his  presence. 

"  Well,  no,"  the  Doctor  responded,  slowly,  a 
smile  curling  the  corners  of  his  mouth ;  "  I 
can't  just  say  they  were,  exactly — not  all  of 
them." 

"Weren't  they — weren't  they  satisfactory  to 
the  young  lady  ?  " 

He  was  fiery  red  in  the  face  with  this  ;  but 
the  Doctor  did  not  notice  it,  seemingly.  His 
smile  of  amusement  grew  broader. 


THE  MIDGE. 


157 


"  I  don't  know  about  that,"  he  said ;  "  I  didn't 
hear  her  say  anything  much  about  them — but 
maybe  she  can  tell  you  better  for  herself.  This 
is  the  young  lady." 

He  indicated  the  Midge.  It  was  rather  comic 
to  him  to  think  that  the  child  for  whom  he  had 
bought  novels  three  years  before,  was  now  so 
near  to  being  indeed  a  young  lady.  He  saw 
that  he  must  introduce  Mr.  Hathaway  to  the 
Midge,  and  he  smiled  again  as  he  fitted  her 
rarely-used  patronymic  to  his  simple  formula  of 
introduction. 

"  Mr. — Mr. — Hathaway,  isn't  it  ? — this  is  Miss 
Talbot,  who  wanted  the  books." 

It  amused  him  to  think  of  the  Midge  as  Miss 
Talbot.  But  if  he  took  the  formality  somewhat 
lightly,  the  Midge  made  up  for  it  by  the  dignity 
with  which  she  received  the  intimation  of  Mr. 
Hathaway's  existence.  She  smiled  condescend 
ingly,  as  she  ate  her  bouilli,  and  listened  to  the 
young  man's  remarks  on  French  literature. 

Mr.  Hathaway  was  frankly  talkative.  From 
French  literature  he  skipped  to  talking  about 
himself,  and  he  had  much  interesting  informa 
tion  to  impart  concerning  his  three  years'  cruise 
in  the  tropics.  He  had  been  at  Valparaiso  a 
long  time,  and  he  described  Valparaiso  with  en 
thusiastic  admiration.  Valparaiso  led  him  to 
talk  about  Paris,  and  that  brought  the  Midge  out, 
and  the  Doctor  was  able  to  withdraw  from  the 


THE  MIDGE. 

conversation  and  devote  himself  to  his  dinner, 
while  the  younger  people  chatted  of  Europe  and 
European  ways.  To  hear  the  Midge  talk,  you 
would  have  thought  that  she  had  been  a  fashion 
able  tourist  with  many  years'  experience  of  the 
Continent. 

Incidentally,  it  came  out  that  Mr.  Hathaway 
was  at  home  on  sick  leave.  He  had  been  hurt  in 
the  course  of  some  gun-practice  at  Newport, 
early  that  summer.  The  Midge  had  thawed,  by 
this  time,  and  she  gave  his  sufferings  the  tribute 
of  a  dainty  little  "  Oh !  " — which  expression  of 
sympathy  he  manfully  disclaimed.  He  had  not 
been  hurt  much,  he  explained ;  it  was  really 
nothing  at  all — only  a  game  leg  for  a  few  weeks 
— and  he  was  all  right  now.  Oh,  yes,  he  was 
all  right — only  the  day  before  yesterday  he  had 
taken  a  twenty  mile  walk,  to  get  a  little  sketch 
ing,  along  the  Bronx. 

The  Midge  called  the  Doctor's  attention  to 
this  fact.  They,  too,  had  recently  been  wander 
ing  along  the  tortuous  course  of  the  river  Bronx. 
It  was  an  interesting  coincidence.  And  she  also 
told  the  Doctor  that  Mr.  Hathaway  had  been 
engaged  in  gun-practice.  She  drew  his  notice 
to  this  with  a  proud  sense  of  safety,  for  she  knew 
that  he  was  wholly  weaned  from  his  old  schemes 
of  bloodthirsty  invention. 

Dr.  Peters  heard  her  remarks  rather  absent- 
mindedly.  He  had  been  thinking  while  the 


THE  MIDGE. 


159 


other  two  talked.  He  thought  that  Mr.  Hatha 
way  was  a  very  kindly  young  man,  to  be  willing 
to  spend  so  much  time  on  a  child.  And  he  saw 
that  the  Midge  was  enjoying  the  conversation. 
She  was  positively  vivacious — brighter  than  he 
had  seen  her  in  some  time.  She  had  never  quite 
recovered  her  high  spirits  since  her  sickness  in 
the  spring.  Now  her  eyes  sparkled,  and  she 
ran  on  so  fluently  that  he  was  afraid  she  would 
bore  her  new  acquaintance.  It  struck  him,  for 
the  first  time,  that  she  did  not  see  enough  of 
young  people.  Hathaway,  of  course,  was  too 
old  for  her  ;  but  if  he  was  considerate  enough  to 
talk  with  her,  and  if  it  did  her  good, — why, 
where  would  be  the  harm  in  asking  him  to  come 
and  see  them,  once  in  a  while  ?  It  would  be  a 
change  for  the  Midge — perhaps  for  him,  too. 

He  asked  Mr.  Hathaway  to  call.  Mr.  Hath 
away  said  he  would,  and  when  they  left  the  res 
taurant,  he  walked  with  them  to  their  door,  so 
that  he  might  not  forget  their  number. 

Two  days  later,  he  called.  He  made  himself 
very  entertaining,  and  when  he  told  of  his  long 
and  lonely  sketching-tramps,  the  Doctor  invited 
him  to  join  their  expedition  for  the  next  Sunday. 
He  accepted  the  invitation  with  agreeable  readi 
ness. 

After  he  had  gone,  the  Doctor  felt  that  his 
act  had  been  somewhat  too  impulsive. 

"  I    ought   to   have   asked   you    first,   Midge, 


THE  MIDGE. 

whether  you  wanted  to  have  him  go.  I  was 
rather  thoughtless,  I  guess.  How  do  you  feel 
about  it  ?  I  won't  do  it  again  unless  you  say 
so." 

The  Midge  raised  her  eyebrows  and  let  them 
fall  in  a  doubtful  frown. 

"Just  you  and  I — that  is  what  I  like  best, 
Evert.  But  if  you  think  he  will  be  pleasant — it 
is  for  you  to  say.  You  like  him  ? — you  think 
he  is  nice?" 

"  Why,  yes ;  he  seems  a  straightforward,  honest 
sort  of  fellow.  Don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know."  She  shrugged  her  shoul 
ders  as  she  looked  in  the  glass  and  adjusted  her 
hair.  "  It  is  too  soon  to  say." 

The  next  Sunday  was  fine,  and  they  went  to 
Fort  Hamilton,  the  three  of  them.  Down  there, 
the  sea  breezes  had  kept  the  grass  green,  and 
had  left  a  few  leaves  on  the  trees.  They  wan 
dered  along  the  bluff,  and  admired  the  English 
beauty  of  Clifton  spire,  nestling  against  the 
Staten  Island  hills  opposite.  They  went  up  to 
the  Fort,  and  saw  the  place  where  the  Doctor's 
gun  had  been  tried;  and  the  Doctor  told  the 
story  of  the  failure,  with  humor  chastened  by 
retrospection.  Mr.  Hathaway  informed  them  as 
to  the  rig  of  the  craft  at  anchor  in  the  Narrows 
and  up  the  bay,  and  spoke  of  foreign  ports 
which  he  had  seen.  They  had  a  good  early 
dinner,  which  they  ate  in  a  jovial  frame  of  mind, 


THE  MIDGE.  IgI 

at  the  queer  old  half-inn  half-boarding-house 
under  the  bluff;  and  a  little  before  seven  o'clock 
they  took  the  rattling,  swaying  dummy  for 
Brooklyn,  and  were  at  home  in  gas-lit  New  York 
just  as  the  church  bells  began  to  ring  for  evening 
service. 

"  Well,  Midge,"  said  the  Doctor,  later  in  the 
evening,  "  how  was  it  ?  Shall  I  ask  him  again  ?  " 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  I  do  not  want  to  say,  Evert.  You  must  do 
as  you  please.  It  is  nothing  to  me.  But  you 
have  not  said  anything  about  my  hair." 

"  What  do  you  want  me  to  say  about  your 
hair  ?  Your  hair's  all  right — oh,  I  see  !  What 
has  become  of  the  pig-tails  ?  " 

"  They  are  not  the  fashion  now.  Don't  you 
think  this  way  is  more  pretty  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XI. 

IF  it  had  been  left  to  the  Doctor  to  say  whether 
or  no  Mr.  Paul  Hathaway  should  be  encour 
aged  to  continue  his  visits,  the  chilly  indifference 
displayed  by  the  Midge  might  have  settled  the 
question  in  the  negative.  But  it  was  not  left  to 
the  Doctor.  Mr.  Hathaway  took  the  matter 
into  his  own  hands.  He  had  received  one  invi 
tation,  and  he  needed  no  more.  He  simply  came, 
and  continued  to  come,  and  as  he  was  thoroughly 
agreeable,  and  as  they  always  enjoyed  his  visits, 
there  seemed  to  be  no  reason  why  he  should  do 
otherwise. 

The  exigencies  of  social  intercourse  demand 
that  we  should  know  who  our  friends  are,  and 
whence  they  come.  Mr.  Hathaway  supplied  all 
the  necessary  data  in  his  case.  He  was  frank 
and  open,  and  when  he  talked  about  himself,  it 
was  with  the  indifferent  ease  with  which  he  might 
have  discoursed  on  the  peculiarities  of  the  port 
of  Rio  Janeiro.  He  was  the  son  of  a  Pennsyl 
vania  clergyman,  who  had  been  also  a  school 
teacher.  His  parents  were  dead,  the  old  uncle 
who  had  brought  him  up  was  dead;  he  had 
162 


THE  MIDGE.  ^3 

passed  his  boyhood  on  the  school-ship,  and  he 
was  now  in  the  navy.  That  was  all  his  story. 
As  he  put  it,  he  was  a  regular  out-and-out, 
thorough-going,  plain,  unvarnished  waif.  No 
body  owned  him,  and  nobody  seemed  anxious 
to  take  possession  of  him.  He  had  no  prospects 
of  promotion  in  the  navy,  and  he  was  as  tired  of 
it  as  a  man  could  be  at  twenty-three.  He  had 
wanted  to  exchange  into  the  army,  because  there 
he  would  have  more  leisure,  and  more  time  for 
sketching.  Sketching  was  about  the  best  fun  he 
knew.  Of  course,  he  couldn't  really  do  anything 
at  it ;  but,  still,  it  was  fun.  Only  he  saw  no 
prospect  of  getting  into  the  army.  Lieutenant- 
cies  were  not  lying  around  loose.  He  supposed 
he  would  have  to  go  back  to  the  Wequeteqiiock, 
when  his  sick  leave  expired.  And  perhaps  it 
was  all  he  was  good  for,  after  all.  Certainly  the 
Peters  household  would  be  tired  of  him  by  that 
time.  Oh,  it  was  very  kind  of  them  to  say  that 
they  wouldn't ;  but  they  hadn't  tried  it  yet.  They 
would  have  two  months  more  of  him. 

In  the  first  of  their  acquaintance,  when  he 
heard  that  the  Midge  painted  in  water-colors,  he 
had  promised  to  bring  his  sketches  around  to 
show  her.  On  his  first  visit  she  exhibited  her 
own  works,  and  reminded  him  of  his  promise ; 
but  somehow  or  other,  from  day  to  day  he  forgot 
to  produce  the  pictures.  It  was  only  on  the 
friendly  insistence  of  the  Doctor  that  he  finally 


1 64 


THE  MIDGE. 


brought  a  package  of  sketches  for  their  inspection. 
And  immediately  afterward  the  Midge's  portfolio 
disappeared  from  the  sitting-room. 

Mr.  Hathaway 's  modesty  had  over-served  him 
in  this  instance.  He  drew  uncommonly  well, 
and  his  work  had  that  quality  of  confidence  and 
'spirit  which  picture  dealers  and  some  art-critics 
call  chic.  The  next  afternoon  that  he  looked 
in  at  the  Peters  establishment — he  had  got  to 
"looking  in  "  by  this  time — the  Midge  was  paint 
ing,  and  much  to  his  embarrassment,  and  against 
his  will,  he  found  himself  gently  but  firmly 
placed  in  the  position  of  a  superior  critic  and 
adviser — a  sort  of  amateur  teacher,  in  fact. 

This  initial  introduction  of  a  visitor  into  the 
family  accomplished  itself  without  friction  and 
with  pleasant  results.  The  Doctor  saw  that 
their  previous  "twofold  solitude"  had  been  a 
mistake.  He  began  to  ask  people  to  come  to 
see  them.  He  knew  but  few  who  were  desirable 
as  familiar  associates,  and  they  were  none  of 
them  very  young  or  very  entertaining ;  but  he 
did  his  best  with  these  few.  He  got  Parker 
Prout  and  Professor  Mannheim  to  drop  in  of  an 
evening,  and  when  they  took  kindly  to  the  idea, 
as  they  did  after  a  first  trial,  he  was  surprised  to 
see  how  much  more  there  was  in  them  than  came 
out  in  their  professional  hours,  or  even  in  their 
time  of  recreation  at  the  Brasserie  Pigault,  where 
he  had  first  met  them.  Father  Dube,  too,  was 


THE  MIDGE. 


I65 


willing  to  give  them  an  evening  from  time  to 
time,  and  he  taught  the  Midge  to  play  dominos. 
The  Doctor  seriously  reproached  himself  that  he 
had  not  thought  to  instruct  her  in  that  innocent 
and  mildly  exciting  game.  But  then  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  had  neglected  the  Midge  in  various 
ways.  There  were  possibilities  in  life  with  which 
he  had  done  nothing  to  make  her  familiar.  He 
had  not  noticed  her  growth,  or  the  fact  that  his 
own  world  was  somewhat  narrow  for  her. 

This  was  borne  in  upon  Dr.  Peters  when  the 
Reverend  Mr.  Pratt  loomed  up  as  one  of  the 
possibilities  of  life.  He  was  invited  one  night  to 
play  whist  with  Parker  Prout,  Professor  Mann 
heim  and  the  Doctor.  The  Midge  abhorred 
whist,  and  so  Paul  Hathaway  kept  her  company 
in  a  far  corner  while  the  game  went  on.  Mr. 
Pratt  played  whist,  not  because  he  liked  it,  but 
because  he  considered  it  one  of  the  approved  and 
accepted  forms  of  amusement  which  it  was  his 
duty,  as  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England, 
to  encourage.  He  passed  a  jovial  evening,  for 
him.  He  drank  a  glass  of  sherry  and  ginger- 
ale  ;  although,  as  he  observed,  the  use  of  strong 
liquor  did  not  agree  with  him. 

Presumably,  however,  he  did  not  suffer  from 
remorse  or  indigestion  on  the  morrow,  for  he 
began  to  pay  frequent  calls,  and  showed  an 
amiable  interest  in  the  welfare  of  Dr.  Peters  and 
Miss  Talbot. 


THE  MIDGE. 

"  Miss  Talbot "  she  did  not  long  remain  to  any 
of  the  little  group.  Her  father's  name  had  long 
been  unfamiliar  to  her  own  ears,  and  she  did  not 
seem  inclined  to  insist  upon  her  right  to  it.  The 
Doctor  and  Prout  called  her  "Midge";  Mann 
heim  hailed  her  as  "  Mitsh,"  which  was  as  near 
as  he  could  come  to  it;  and  the  two  younger 
men  had  to  find  more  suitably  respectful  modes 
of  address.  Mr.  Pratt  selected  "Miss  Lodoiska," 
without  sparing  one  syllable,  and  Hathaway 
called  her  "  Miss  Lois."  This  was  a  bold  and 
original  device,  and  he  had  the  name  to  himself. 

From  the  time  that  he  first  heard  her  called 
"  Miss  Lodoiska,"  the  Doctor  became  conscious 
of  a  new  discomfort.  He  had  to  recognize  not 
only  the  fact  that  she  -was  "  Miss  "  Lodoiska,  but 
the  fact  that  others  recognized  that  fact. 

The  Reverend  Theodore  Beatty  Pratt  recog 
nized  it.  Before  he  had  been  long  a  visitor  in 
that  top  floor  on  Washington  Square,  he  became 
aware,  to  some  extent,  of  the  deficiencies  in  her 
religious  education.  He  never  grasped  the 
whole  hideous  truth,  but  he  learned  enough  to 
make  him  deeply  concerned  for  her.  He  tried 
to  get  her  to  teach  a  class  in  the  Sunday-school, 
by  way  of  making  up  for  what  she  herself  should 
have  been  taught,  and,  failing  in  this,  he  asked 
her  to  read  a  few  books  which  he  desired  to 
select  for  her.  She  did  not  refuse,  and  he 
brought  the  books,  and  came  from  time  to  time 


THE  MIDGE. 


167 


to  talk  over  them  with  her.  He  did  nearly  all 
the  talking  himself;  but  then  his  opinions  were 
unimpeachably  correct. 

If  it  had  begun  and  ended  with  the  books,  the 
Doctor  would  have  been  well  pleased.  But  the 
books  were  only  a  small  part  of  it.  Mr.  Pratt's 
communications  stretched  out  into  expansions  of 
personality,  and  confidences.  He  told  the  Midge 
of  his  private  hopes  and  ambitions.  He  told  her 
of  his  early  life  in  a  small  Ohio  village,  of  the 
struggles  of  his  youth,  of  the  sacrifices  which  his 
mother  had  made  to  send  him  to  college,  of  the 
pride  with  which  she  looked  upon  his  present 
position.  And,  worst  of  all,  he  told  Miss  Lo- 
doiska  of  his  first  and  only  love-affair  and  its 
unfortunate  ending. 

The  Doctor  knew  more  or  less  of  this,  and  he 
was  displeased  and  disturbed.  He  thought  that 
Pratt  was  very  wrong  to  talk  so  to  a  girl  of  the 
Midge's  age.  For,  even  if  she  was  not  quite  a 
child — and  he  was  willing  to  admit  that  she  had 
got  beyond  the  point  where  she  could  be  called  a 
child  and  nothing  more — she  was  certainly  not 
old  enough  for  that  sort  of  thing.  Pratt  was  old 
enough,  himself,  to  know  better.  And  he  was 
young  enough  to  make  his  indiscretion  possibly 
dangerous.  And  the  Doctor  was  displeased  with 
the  Midge  for  listening  to  such  talk.  Why  she 
wanted  to  listen  to  Pratt  at  all  he  could  not  under 
stand.  But  she  certainly  did  listen. 


THE  MIDGE. 

The  Doctor  knew  little  of  social  diplomacy. 
He  had  tact  and  delicacy  in  dealing  with  the  poor 
and  miserable ;  but  he  felt  himself  at  a  loss  in  a 
matter  like  this.  He  gave  Mr.  Pratt  two  or  three 
hints  so  broad  that  no  man  free  from  an  abso 
lutely  guilty  conscience  could  have  understood 
them ;  and  he  made  some  disparaging  remarks 
about  Pratt  to  the  Midge.  These  she  received  in 
silence,  which  was  the  only  way  in  which  she 
ever  expressed  disapproval  of  anything  he  did. 
This  annoyed  and  perplexed  him  more  than  he 
would  have  been  willing  to  confess  to  himself. 
And  so  it  came  about  that  there  grew  up  a  mis 
understanding — undefined,  unavowed  ;  but  a  mis 
understanding — between  himself  and  her ;  and 
their  life  was  not  just  what  it  had  been  before. 

The  Doctor  was  greatly  relieved  when  he 
learned  that  Mr.  Pratt  was  about  to  leave  New 
York.  There  was  to  be  a  change  in  the  manage 
ment  of  the  mission.  Mr.  Pratt's  charge  had  been 
only  temporary  in  its  nature,  though  he  had  held 
it  for  some  years  ;  and  he  had  not  been  success 
ful  in  his  labors.  The  trustees  were  dissatisfied, 
and  he  himself  felt  that  he  was  out  of  place.  So 
he  had  accepted  a  call  to  a  church  in  Ohio,  near 
his  native  place.  He  was  very  thankful  for  the 
call,  and  very  glad  of  the  prospect  of  having  a 
church  of  his  own.  And  he  could  see  his  mother, 
from  time  to  time,  by  driving  twenty-five  miles. 
He  never  thought  to  inquire  whether  the  dissatis- 


THE  MIDGE. 

faction  of  the  trustees  of  the  mission  had  any 
thing  to  do  with  the  procurement  of  the  call. 
He  only  knew  that  he  was  called  to  a  field  of 
labor  for  which  he  felt  himself  better  suited. 

He  came  one  afternoon  to  bid  the  Midge  good 
bye.  He  brought  her  several  books  which  he 
wanted  her  to  read.  He  spoke  of  his  prospects 
and  of  what  he  hoped  to  accomplish.  He  told 
her  he  wished  he  had  been  able  to  be  of  more 
service  to  her,  as  a  spiritual  guide,  than  he  had 
been,  and  when  he  rose  to  go  he  stood  for  a 
moment  or  two  limply  shaking  her  hand. 

"  I  suppose,"  he  said,  "  it  doesn't  seem  very 
attractive  to  you,  the  idea  of  living  in  a  little 
country  village,  away  out  in  Ohio  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  answered,  frankly,  "  it  must  be 
a  bore.  I  hope  you  will  like  it  better  than  I 
should.  It  must  be  a  great  bore." 

"There  is  so  much  to  be  done,"  he  said. 

"Well,  I  hope  you  will  do  it.  It  is  nice  of  you 
to  go,  you  know.  Yes,"  she  added,  reflectively, 
"I  am  sure  it  is  nice  of  you  to  go." 

He  looked  hard  at  her,  and  then  turned  away, 
and,  saying  "  Good-bye,"  went  down  the  stairs. 
He  was  a  poor  little  fellow,  poor  of  intellect,  poor 
of  soul ;  but  he  was  man  enough  to  read  and  re 
spect  the  high  unconsciousness  of  her  maiden  eyes. 
***** 

When  the  Doctor  came  home  that  evening — 
he  had  been  out  buying  tools  for  his  sewing- 


THE  MIDGE. 

machine  model-making— the  Midge  greeted  him 
with  a  rapturous  smile,  such  as  she  had  not  given 
him  in  weeks. 

"  Oh,  Evert,"  she  said,  "  Mr.  Pratt  has  gone." 

"  Well  ?  "  returned  the  Doctor,  rather  unsym- 
pathetically. 

"  I'm  so  glad  !  " 

"  You're  gladf" 

"  Why,  of  course." 

"  Well,  I  don't  precisely  see  why  '  of  course.' 
I  thought  you  had  been  pretty  thick  of  late, 
you  two." 

"  Oh,  I  had  to  be  polite  to  him,  you  know.  I 
did  dislike  him  so." 

"  Your  logic  beats  me,  Midge,"  said  the  Doctor, 
with  an  uneasy  smile.  "  If  you  didn't  like  him, 
why  didn't  you  show  it  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  understand  ?  "  she  asked,  looking 
at  him  in  mild  surprise.  "  I  did  not  want  to  be 
unjust,  any  more  than  you  would." 

The  Doctor  pondered. 

"  Well,  I  suppose  there  is  something  in  that" 

"  Of  course — don't  you  see  ?  And  he  would 
come  to  me  and  tell  me  all  about  his  mother,  and 
how  she  has  had  meat  only  once  a  week,  so  that 
he  might  go  to  college  and  be  a  clergyman.  And 
I  was  very  sorry  for  his  mother,  and  it  was  very 
nice  of  her — but  you  have  no  idea,  Evert,  how  he 
has  bored  me." 

The  Doctor's  brows  were  wrinkled. 


THE  MIDGE. 


I/I 


"  I  thought  you  were  interested  in  his  conver 
sation." 

"  Interested !  But  it  was  a  bore — oh,  a  bore" 

"  You  managed  to  conceal  it  pretty  well,"  he 
observed,  grimly. 

She  gave  him  a  surprised  look,  and  then  her 
face  changed.  She  went  swiftly  to  him  and 
touched  him  on  the  shoulder.  He  had  been 
looking  gloomily  out  of  the  window,  and  he  turned 
toward  her. 

"  Evert !  you  have  not  thought — I  liked  that 
man  ?  " 

"  Why,"  he  began,  uncomfortably,  "  I  thought 
you  seemed  to  have  taken  a  sort  of  a  fancy  to 
his  society —  " 

"Oh,  Evert!" 

"  I'm  not  finding  fault,  my  dear.  You've  a 
right  to  choose  your  own  friends,  and —  " 

"  But  I  could  never  have  him  for  a  friend ! 
How  could  you  have  thought  that?  Why, 
Evert,  he  was  not  nice  at  all.  You  did  not  like 
him  yourself,  did  you  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  like  him — no,  not  exactly.  I  won't 
say  I  disliked  him,  though.  He  was  a  good 
enough  little  fellow,  I  suppose." 

"  Good  !  I  am  not  so  sure  he  was  good.  That 
is  as  you  look  at  it.  I  should  not  want  to  have 
you  good  like  that.  Why,  Evert,  do  you  know  ? 
he  was  engaged  to  a  girl  out  there,  and  when  he 
found  that  if  he  married  her  he  could  not  afford 


1 72 


THE  MIDGE. 


to  study  and  be  a  clergyman,  he  has  gone  to 
her  and  broken  it  off.  What  do  you  think  of 
that?" 

The  Doctor  smiled  with  more  mirthfulness 
than  before. 

"  That's  his  own  business,  my  dear — his  and 
the  young  woman's." 

"  But  he  has  gone  to  her  and  told  her  about  it, 
and  how  he  had  to  choose  between  her  and  being 
a  clergyman,  and  they  have  prayed  together,  and 
he  has  made  her  think  the  way  he  did,  and 
she  has  let  him  go.  For  me,  I  think  it  was  a 
shame.  I  think  it  was  cruel — and  I  have  told 
him  so." 

The  Doctor  laughed  outright  this  time. 

"Well,  just  there  I  think  you  exceeded  your 
duty,  Midge.  That  was  a  question  of  morals 
that  it  isn't  for  us  to  pass  on.  And  it  seems  that 
the  young  woman  consented." 

"  That  was  because  she  was  a  woman.  But 
she  was  not  young.  She  was  thirty." 

"  Then  she  was  old  enough  to  know  her  own 
mind." 

"  But  would  you  have  done  such  a  thing?"  de 
manded  the  Midge,  indignantly :  "  would  you 
give  up  a  woman  you  have  loved,  for  anything 
— for  anything  in  the  world  ?  I  think  it  is 
wicked !" 

"  I'm  not  speaking  for  myself,  Midge.  But 
I'm  not  running  Mr.  Pratt's  conscience.  I  dare 


THE  MIDGE. 


173 


say  he  thought  it  was  right,  or  he  wouldn't  have 
done  it." 

"  He  thought  it  was  right — maybe.  But  he 
ought  not  to  have  thought  it  was  right.  You 
know  it  was  wrong,  Evert;  and  you  would 
never  have  told  me  to  do  such  a  thing.  Only 
you  are  so  good  to  other  people,  you  will  never 
say  they  are  wrong.  But  now  do  you  see  why  I 
disliked  him  ?  " 

"  You  don't  seem  to  have  approved  of  him, 
for  a  fact,"  said  the  Doctor,  putting  his  arm 
around  her. 

"  And  don't  you  see  why  I  had  to  be  nice  to 
him  ?  For  he  thought  he  was  right,  and  that 
was  what  made  it  so — disgusting.  Don't  you 
understand  why  I  let  him  talk  to  me,  Evert  ?  " 
she  pressed,  nestling  up  to  him. 

"  Because  you  are  a  woman  ?  "  suggested  the 
Doctor,  laughing. 

"  Ah,  now  you  are  making  fun  of  me,"  she 
said,  smiling,  herself,  as  she  slipped  out  of  his 
arm.  "  And  I  have  to  set  the  table  for  dinner. 
See — it  is  ten  minutes  of  six.  You  must  go  and 
get  yourself  ready;  and  I  have  not  changed  my 
dress.  Only  do  not  ever  tell  me  again  that  he 
could  be  my  friend." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  January  wind  blew  in  through  the  open 
front  door  of  the  old  house  on  Washington 
Square,  and  brought  a  smell  of  cooking  up  to 
Doctor  Peters's  top  floor,  one  morning  shortly 
after  New  Year's.  Most  of  the  smell  proceeded 
from  the  lower  regions ;  but  some  of  it  was  an 
importation,  a  separate  smell  hanging  around  a 
tonsled,  smudgy,  hunted-looking  little  boy,  who 
did  not  need  a  label  to  tell  the  experienced  eye 
that  he  was  the  male  "  slavey  "  of  a  New  York 
boarding-house  of  the  third  or  fourth  class.  It 
is  not  every  cheap  boarding-house  that  has  such 
an  attendant  on  its  domestic  staff;  but  those 
that  do  keep  him  use  him  as  boots,  scullion, 
errand-boy,  and  in  several  other  capacities,  and 
he  is  just  such  a  soiled  and  harried  creature  as 
stood  before  Dr.  Peters  that  sharp  morning, 
rubbing  his  blue  nose  with  the  sleeve  of  his  thin 
jacket. 

"  The  genTm'n  said  to  give  it  to  you  very  per- 
tickler,"  he  said,  in  one  breath. 

The  note  which  he  handed  to  the  Doctor  read 
thus: 


THE  MIDGE. 


175 


"  DEAR  DR.  PETERS — Can  I  see  you  at  once,  and  privately  ? 
I  am  in  no  end  of  trouble.     I  will  meet  you  anywhere  you  say — 
but  I  don't  want  to  have  any  one  know  it. 
"  In  haste,  yours, 

"PAUL  HATHAWAY." 

The  Doctor  sent  a  line  in  reply :  "  Come  here 
in  half-an-hour — we  shall  be  alone,"  and  the  boy 
went  down  stairs  three  steps  at  a  time  tossing  a 
coin  into  the  air  and  singing  a  paean  of  his  own 
to  an  air  of  the  day : 

"  O-o-oh  !  dat  dime  he  gimme, 
O-o-oh  !  dat  dime  he  gimme, 

Good  old  chump  wid  a  mustash  on — 
Golden  slippers  in  de  mawn ! " 

The  Doctor  listened,  smiled,  half-sighed,  and 
smiled  again.  Then  he  turned  from  the  door, 
and  faced  the  Midge,  dressed  to  go  out  for  her 
household  shopping.  She  had  long  been  con 
sidered  "  equal  to  the  exigencies  of  the  situa 
tion." 

She  was  very  pretty  to  look  at,  and  rather  patrix 
cian,  in  her  way,  as  she  stood,  erect  and  graceful, 
in  her  trim  seal-skin  sacque,  a  neat,  Frenchy 
bonnet  on  her  small,  shapely,  well-poised  head. 

"  I  shall  not  be  long,  Evert,"  she  said. 

"  Well,"  he  suggested,  "  you  needn't  hurry 
home  this  morning." 

She  showed  her  white,  even  little  teeth  in  a 
mischievous  smile. 


176 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  Oh,  you  are  tired  of  my  society !  " 

"  Not  exactly  tired,  Midge — only  a  little 
fatigued,  so  to  speak.  No,  dear — there's  some 
body  coming  here  on  business.  And  if  you 
want  to  take  the  opportunity  to  call  on  your 
dressmaker  and  see  if  there  aren't  some  new 
duds  that  you  absolutely  don't  need — why,  you've 
got  a  good  excuse." 

"  Ah,  no  ! "  she  persisted,  maliciously :  "  You 
cannot  deceive  me.  You  want  to  get  rid  of  me. 
Very  well,  I  will  stay  out  until  you  are  anxious 
to  have  me  back,  and  put  an  advertisement  in 
the  papers — '  Midge :  Return  to  your  penitent 
Evert.  I  will  never  turn  you  out  again — E.  P.' " 

As  might  have  been  expected,  to  a  young 
woman  of  the  Midge's  sense  of  humor,  the 
"  personal "  column  of  a  well-known  morning 
paper  had  no  terrors.  She  finished  her  imagin 
ary  quotation  with  a  saucy,  dainty  nod  and  wink, 
and  marched  off  to  her  shopping. 

She  had  scarcely  got  out  of  the  house  when 
Hathaway  entered.  One  glance  told  the  Doctor 
that  the  "  no  end  of  trouble  "  was  no  exaggera 
tion.  The  color  had  gone  out  of  the  handsome 
face,  and  the  blue  eyes  were  filled  with  the 
over-burdening,  all-absorbing  anxiety  of  the 
young  spirit  in  its  first  encounter  with  misfor 
tune,  when  the  moment's  cloud  makes  black  the 
whole  universe,  and  there  never,  no,  never,  was 
such  another  woe  upon  earth. 


THE  MIDGE. 


177 


"  What's  the  matter,  Hathaway  ?  " 

"  Everything's  the  matter !  "  said  the  young 
man,  dropping  into  a  chair;  "  I'm  a  scamp  and  a 
blackguard,  and  I'm  being  punished  as  I  deserve. 
That's  what's  the  matter." 

"  Oh,  come,  my  boy — it's  not  so  bad  as  all 
that." 

"  Yes,  it  is.  I  haven't  the  slightest  claim  on 
your  sympathy,  or — or — any  one's  sympathy. 
I  don't  know  why  I've  got  the  audacity  to  come 
to  you,  and  if  you  tell  me  that  you  can't  help  me 
— why,  I'll  admit  it's  all  I'm  worth." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  the  Doctor,  encouragingly, 
"  let's  have  the  whole  damnation.  What  is  it  ?  " 

Hathaway  silently  handed  him  a  letter.  It 
was  written  on  thin  paper,  in  a  foreign  hand,  and 
dated  from  Valparaiso.  The  English  was  most 
un-English ;  but  the  meaning  of  the  communi 
cation  was  clear.  The  Doctor  read  it  through 
carefully. 

"  Is  this  true  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  boy.  He  sat  with  his 
elbows  on  his  knees,  resting  his  forehead  on  his 
hands. 

The  Doctor  shook  his  head,  gave  a  long,  low 
whistle  of  dismay,  and  walked  to  the  window, 
where  he  stood  for  a  minute  staring  vacantly  out 
at  the  wind-swept  square. 

"Well,"  he  said,  at  last,  "you'd  better  tell  me 
all  about  it." 

12 


THE  MIDGE. 

"  There  isn't  much  to  tell,"  Hathaway  began, 
in  a  choking  tone,  as  if  it  hurt  him  to  talk. 
"  We  were  at  Valparaiso  a  good  deal,  off  and  on. 
We  were  up  and  down  the  coast  all  through 
those  rows  they  had  down  there — it  was  two 
years  ago,  you  know.  And  we  got  to  going — a 
lot  of  us  fellows — to  this  old  man's  house — this 
Garcia.  We  found  out  afterward  that  it  was  a 
regular  gambling-place,  in  a  shy  sort  of  way, 
and  he  got  about  all  the  money  we  had — 'twasn't 
much.  And  I  got  terribly  gone  on  this  girl — 
she  was  his  eldest  daughter,  and  she  was  hand 
some — beautiful — in  that  Southern  way.  I  don't 
want  to  see  anybody  like  her  again,  though.  I 
was  in  love  with  her — or  I  thought  I  was — I 
don't  know.  I  know  I  was  a  fool  about  it.  The 
fellows  all  said  so.  And  I  suppose  I  did  ask 
her  to  marry  me — yes,  I  did — but  that  was  only 
in  the  first  of  it,  when  I  didn't  know  what  sort 
of  girl  she  was.  Afterward  —  why,  I  never 
thought  she'd  dream  of  such  a  thing  as  holding 
me  to  it.  I'd  cut  my  throat  before  I'd  think  of 
it."  He  clinched  his  hands  and  fairly  shud 
dered. 

The  Doctor  looked  over  the  letter  again. 

"  Is  it  genuine,  do  you  think,  this  business  ? 
Or  is  it  blackmail?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  the  young  man  groaned. 

"  What's  the  standing  of  the  family  ?  " 

"  It's  hard  to  say.     I  don't  know  what  to  tell 


THE  MIDGE. 


1/9 


you.  They  have  been  respectable,  certainly — I 
guess  they  had  a  good  deal  of  money  once. 
The  old  man  is  nothing  but  a  shark  and  a 
sharper  now,  and  I  suppose  they're  a  pretty  bad 
lot  all  around.  But  I  can't  go  to  work  to  prove 
that,  you  know." 

"  Let's  see  " — the  Doctor  referred  once  more 
to  the  letter :  "  when  does  he  say  he'll  send  his 
charges  to  Washington  ?  " 

"  They  must  be  there  now.  You  see,  he 
threatens  to  do  it  if  he  doesn't  hear  from  me 
within  two  months.  And  it's  dated  in  October. 
You  see,  he  thought  I  was  on  the  Wcquetequock, 
at  Rio,  and  she  hasn't  been  at  Rio.  The  accursed 
thing  has  lain  there  over  one  mail  and  then  been 
forwarded.  I  got  it  last  night." 

"  But  you  haven't  heard  from  Washington  ?  " 

"  I  haven't  yet ;  but  I  shall  soon  enough  ;  and 
it  will  be  the  end  of  me,  Doctor.  They're  lax 
enough  about  most  things,  in  the  navy;  but 
that's  the  kind  of  thing  they  won't  stand  from  a 
fellow  in  my  position.  They'll  make  an  example 
of  me,  just  as  they  did  of  Willy  Blackford.  Oh, 
it's  a  bad  business,  Doctor." 

"  Yes,  it  is,"  said  Dr.  Peters,  laying  his  hand 
on  the  bowed  shoulder ;  "  but  we  must  try  to 
make  the  best  of  it.  Come,  look  up  and  look  it 
in  the  face." 

Hathaway  did  look  up,  after  a  moment. 

"  By  Jove,  Doctor,  you're  a  good  man  !  " 


THE  MIDGE. 

"  Never  mind  about  that.  Let's  get  at  the 
facts  in  the  case.  I  want  to  know  all  about  it. 
How  old  was  this — this  friend  of  yours  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know."  A  tinge  of  red  came  into 
his  pale  cheeks.  "  The  boys  said  she  was  thirty; 
but  I  don't  believe  she  was  more  than  twenty-six 
or  so." 

"  And  you  were — how  old  ?  " 

"  I  was  twenty-one  the  day  we  first  got  to 
Valparaiso." 

"  That's  two  years  ago  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Why  have  they  waited  so  long  to  follow  you 
up?" 

"  I  suppose  they  thought  we  were  coming  back. 
We  went  down  the  coast  to  look  after  some 
privateer,  or  something,  and  then  we  got  orders 
to  come  home.  I  can't  explain  it." 

"  Looks  crooked,"  said  the  Doctor,  cheerfully. 

He  continued  his  examination,  with  encour 
aging  results.  Things  began  to  look  better,  at 
least  from  the  point  of  view  of  morality.  Hatha 
way  was  frank  and  self-accusatory.  He  made  no 
attempt  to  justify  himself;  and  it  was  evident  that 
he  had  done  wrong.  But  it  was  also  evident 
that  it  was  the  wrong-doing  of  an  inexperienced, 
impulsive  boy,  under  the  influence  of  a  woman 
much  older  than  himself,  and  with  whom  he  was 
foolishly  in  love.  It  seemed  probable  that  he 
was  the  victim  of  a  family  conspiracy.  He  had 


THE  MIDGE.  !8i 

had,  at  the  time,  a  few  hundred  dollars,  a  legacy 
from  his  uncle,  and  he  had  spent  it  all  at  Valpa 
raiso.  This  might  have  given  ground  for  a  belief 
that  he  was  wealthier  than  most  of  his  set. 

He  was  utterly  penitent,  humble  and  abashed; 
that  was  certain.  It  was  not  merely  the  fear  of 
the  consequences ;  the  wound  he  had  dealt  his 
own  honor  and  his  own  sense  of  self-respect 
seemed  to  trouble  him  more  than  anything  else. 

"  It  isn't  the  being  discharged,"  he  moaned. 
"  I'm  willing  enough  to  get  out  of  the  service — 
but  it's  the  going  out  in  this  awful  way.  Or,  if  I 
were  accused  falsely,  I  shouldn't  mind  it  so 
much.  But  I  feel  so  mean  and  degraded — I  can't 
look  anybody  in  the  face." 

"  It's  not  so  sure  that  you  are  going  out  of  the 
service,"  Dr.  Peters  put  in.  "  And  you've  got  to 
look  me  in  the  face  while  we  resolve  ourselves 
into  a  committee  on  ways  and  means." 

They  began  to  talk  of  the  possibilities  of  help 
to  be  got  from  Hathaway's  superior  officers.  He 
had  been  something  of  a  favorite  on  ship-board, 
he  owned,  with  another  blush. 

"  Captain  Chester  is  as  good  an  old  boy  as  ever 
walked,  and  I  know  he'd  give  me  a  hand,  if  he 
could.  But  he  got  into  trouble  in  Blackford's 
case,  and  I  believe  he  got  an  awful  wigging  from 
General  Beecham,  and —  " 

"  Beecham  ?  General  Beecham  ?  "  repeated  the 
Doctor,  "  not  Buel  Beecham — ?  he's  no  sailor." 


jg2  THE  MIDGE. 

"  That's  the  man.  I  know  he's  no  sailor ;  but 
he's  a  grand  mogul  in  the  Navy  department,  all 
the  same :  and  he  sits  up  there  at  Washington 
and  bullyrags  old  men  who  were  in  the  service 
before  he  was  born,  and  who  have  forgotten  more 
about  their  business  than  he  ever  knew." 

"  Buel  Beecham,"  said  Dr.  Peters,  meditatively. 
"  Buel  Beecham — General  Buel  Beecham.  You 
don't  say  so  !  " 

"  He's  a  terrible  old  martinet,  you  know.  And 
they  all  ko-tow  to  him.  It  was  he  who  said  that 
Willy  Blackford  must  be  made  an  example  of, 
and  that  he'd  see  that  it  was  done.  Oh,  he'll  look 
after  me." 

The  Doctor  crossed  the  room  to  the  mantel 
piece,  rilled  his  pipe,  lit  it,  and  smoked  a  good 
three  minutes — three  minutes  is  a  long  time — in 
solemn  silence.  Hathaway  sat  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  gazing  into  the  fire,  a  heavy  despair 
on  his  young  face.  There  was  no  sound  in  the 
room,  save  the  Midge's  latest-adopted  kitten, 
"  scratching  for  luck  "  on  the  table  leg.  When 
she  had  scratched  and  stretched  enough,  she  stole 
over  to  Hathaway,  and  rubbed  against  his  feet. 
He  looked  down  at  her  and  stooped  to  caress 
her,  and  then  suddenly  drew  back  with  a  nervous 
start,  sprang  to  his  feet  and  stood  irresolutely 
looking  from  the  Doctor  to  the  door,  and  back 
again. 

The  Doctor  rose  and  spoke  deliberately. 


THE  MIDGE. 


133 


"  Hathaway,  I'm  going  to  Washington." 

"Sir/" 

"  I'm  going  to  Washington,  to-night.  Whether 
this  charge  is  pressed  now  or  hereafter,  it's  none 
too  soon  to  look  after  the  case.  I  think  I  may 
be  able  to  do  something  for  you.  Mind !  I  don't 
promise  you  anything.  But  I  may  have  the 
power  to  help  you,  and  if  I  can  I  will." 

"  Oh,  Doctor — Doctor  Peters !  "  the  young  man 
began — "  what  can  I  say  to — " 

"  You  can't  say  anything.  Don't  try  to.  All 
I  want  to  hear  from  you  is  this — "  he  came  closer, 
and  took  hold  of  Hathaway  by  both  shoulders. 
They  were  nearly  of  a  height,  the  young  man 
and  the  older. 

"  I  want  you  to  promise  me  one  thing.  Never 
— never  again  to  give  yourself  a  chance  to  ask 
yourself  whether  you've  acted  like  an  honorable 
man  or  not." 

"I  promise,  so  help  me  God!"  cried  Paul 
Hathaway,  with  the  tears  in  his  blue  eyes. 

"  Midge,"  said  the  Doctor  that  evening,  "  I'm 
going  to  Washington." 

"  To  Washington  ?  And  when?  "  She  looked  up 
with  a  bright  anticipation  of  pleasure  in  her  eyes. 

"  To-morrow." 

"  Oh  !  I  can't  get  ready  so  soon." 

"  There  is  no  occasion  for  you  to  get  ready,  my 
dear.  Who  said  anything  about  your  going  ?  " 


THE  MIDGE. 

"  But  you  aren't  going  anywhere  without  me, 
are  you  ?  "  She  opened  her  eyes  wide. 

"  I  am,  though.  Yes,  dear  " — he  put  his  arm 
about  her — "  It's  a  business  trip,  unfortunately. 
We'll  make  a  pleasure -trip  of  it  some  day;  but 
this  time  I  shall  have  to  go  alone.  I'm  not  par 
ticularly  hankering  after  the  job,  anyway ;  but  I'll 
have  to  attend  to  it  all  by  myself." 

"  It  isn't — the  gun  ?  "  She  spoke  with  a  shade 
of  incredulous  apprehension. 

"  No,  it  isn't  the  gun.  Fact  is —  "  he  frowned, 
and  spoke  hesitatingly, "  it's  not  my  own  business 
at  all.  It's  something  I've  taken  in  hand  for 
young  Hathaway." 

"  Oh,  how  good  of  you,  Evert !  Is  it  about  his 
getting  out  of  the  navy  ?  " 

"  Well — yes.  It's  more  or  less  connected  with 
that" 

She  laid  down  her  book,  and  rose  and  came 
to  him,  taking  his  hand  and  patting  it  with  a  sort 
of  admiring  caress. 

"And  you  are  going  to  help  him?  You 
are  so  nice,  Evert !  You  are  always  doing 
such  things.  What  is  it  that  he  wants  you 
to  do?" 

The  Doctor  frowned  again,  in  perplexity. 

"  I  don't  think  I  can  exactly  tell  you,  Midge. 
He — he  wouldn't  like  it.  It's  a  matter  of  private 
business,  and — and — I'm  sure  he  wouldn't  want 
to  have  me  talk  about  it." 


THE  MIDGE. 


I85 


She  moved  away  with  a  short  "  Oh !  "  and  the 
Doctor  stood  in  uncomfortable  doubt. 

"  Of  course,  I  did  not  mean  to  ask,  if  it  is  any 
thing  private,"  the  Midge  began  again,  after  a 
moment.  "  I  did  not  know.  If  he  has  told  you 
not  to  tell  me —  " 

"  Oh,  no,  he  didn't,"  the  Doctor  interrupted, 
hastily.  "  Nothing  of  the  sort.  He  didn't  say  a 
word  about  you.  Only — it's  a  private  sort  of 
thing — and  I  don't  feel  at  liberty  to  talk  about  it 
without  his  permission." 

He  was  really  at  a  loss.  He  had  never  had  a 
secret  from  the  Midge,  and  the  situation  was  very 
unpleasant  to  him.  He  wanted  to  give  her  some 
hint  that  Hathaway  was  in  trouble  ;  but  he  knew 
her  too  well  to  risk  it.  He  could  foresee  the 
questions  she  would  ask  him.  She  would  not 
inquire  into  the  nature  of  the  difficulty ;  but, 
sooner  or  later,  she  would  ask  if  Hathaway  had 
done  anything  wrong,  and  she  would  receive  his 
answer  with  absolute  confidence.  What  was  he 
to  say  ? 

"It  isn't  that  I  don't  trust  you,  Midge,"  he 
began,  awkwardly ;  but  she  came  back  to  him 
with  a  bright  laugh,  and  rubbed  her  cheek  against 
his  shoulder,  and  talked  to  him  as  though  he  were 
a  child. 

"  Oh,  you  dear  old  thing — I  understand  !  Did 
you  think  I  was  angry  ?  "  She  grasped  the  lapels 
of  his  coat,  and  pretended  to  shake  him.  "  It  is 


!86  THE  MIDGE. 

just  like  you.  You  are  the  soul  of  honor,  and 
you  are  just  conscience  all  over,  and  I  am  glad  of 
it.  There  !  " — and  she  kissed  him — "  What  do  I 
want  to  know  about  your  Mr.  Paul  Hathaway  ? 
Go  and  get  your  traveling-bag,  and  I  will  pack  it 
for  you.  How  many  shirts  do  you  want?" 

The  next  evening  Dr.  Peters  was  in  Washing 
ton.  He  slept  that  night  at  a  hotel,  and  went 
down  to  breakfast  the  next  morning  at  the  com 
mon  table,  where  no  Midge  sat  opposite  him, 
bright  and  fresh  in  flowery  Watteau  morning- 
wrapper.  He  did  not  like  it  at  all,  and  in  spite 
of  his  strange  surroundings,  through  all  his  sense 
of  discomfort  and  disturbance,  he  somehow  felt 
as  if  it  were  the  Midge  who  had  gone  away  from 
him,  and  not  he  who  had  left  the  Midge  behind. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

ENERAL  BUEL  BEECHAM  sat  at  his 
V — J  desk  and  listened  rather  impatiently  to  Dr. 
Peters.  General  Beecham  was  gray -bearded,  with 
a  thin,  cold,  rather  handsome  face — a  New  Eng 
land  face ;  the  face  of  a  man  certainly  self-con 
scious,  selfish  perhaps,  intelligent,  determined, 
and  strong  in  the  kind  of  pride  that  comes  dan 
gerously  close  to  morbid  vanity. 

The  Doctor  was  talking  slowly  but  earnestly, 
in  his  low,  even  voice.  General  Beecham  listened; 
but  he  played  with  a  paper-knife,  and  looked  out 
of  the  window,  where  the  January  breeze  was 
whirling  a  thin  faint  fall  of  snow  hither  and 
thither. 

"  I  really  don't  see  what  I  have  to  do  with  this 
matter,"  he  said  irritably,  as  the  Doctor  paused. 
"  I  have  no  connection  at  all  with  the  case,  Mr. 
— Mr.  Peters.  You  appear  to  think  that  it  rests 
with  me  to  determine  what  shall  be  done.  You 
are  in  error.  And  even  if — even  if  I  had  the 
influence  you  suppose  me  to  have,  I  should  see 
no  reason — no  reason  whatever — for  interfering. 
I  am  sorry  for  your  young  friend,  of  course ;  but, 

187 


1 88  THE  MIDGE. 

as  far  as  I  can  judge  from  what  you  have  said, 
he  is  unquestionably  guilty  of  a  grave  offense 
against  the  honor  of  the  service,  and  an  offense 
that  calls  for  exemplary  punishment.  I  certainly 
should  not  let  my  private  feeling  of  pity  for  the 
young  man  interfere  with  my  obvious  duty  as  a 
public  officer.  And  I  may  say,  Mr. — Mr. — 
excuse  me — Mr.  Peters,  that  if  you  knew  to 
whom  you  were  speaking,  you  would  hardly 
proffer  such  a  request."  He  had  worked  himself 
up  into  something  like  indignation — a  sublimated 
testiness,  as  though  he  felt  that  he  ought  to  feel 
offended. 

"  I  rather  think  I  know  you,  General  Beech- 
am,"  said  Dr.  Peters,  in  the  same  quiet,  slow 
way. 

General  Beecham's  lower  jaw  suddenly  set 
itself  against  the  upper  with  a  peculiar  and  signi 
ficant  firmness. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,  sir." 

The  Doctor  was  unmoved. 

"  Seems  to  me  I've  met  you  before,  General. 
I  was  in  the  soldiering  way  once  myself,  and  you 
were  a  colonel  then.  Met  you  only  once ;  but  I 
think  you'll  remember  it  if  I  recall  the  circum 
stances  to  you.  You  inquired  my  name  then, 
and,  if  my  memory  is  correct,  I  didn't  give  it  to 
you.  But  I  guess  you  remember  me,  all  the 
same.  You  had  your  quarters  at  old  Mammy 
Chapin's  then,  back  of  Vicksburg,  and  the  time 


THE  MIDGE. 


189 


I  met  you  was  the  time  I  took  a  young  man  to 
you  who  had  made  a  bad  slip,  and  who  was  sorry 
for  it  afterwards." 

"  Yes,"  said  General  Beecham  :  "  I  think  I 
know  you  now." 

He  spoke  almost  mechanically.  His  face  had 
suddenly  grown  stern  and  troubled.  He  sat 
perfectly  still,  holding  the  paper-knife  balanced  in 
his  hand,  his  eyes  still  staring  out  of  the  window, 
where  the  snow-powder  whirled  in  the  wind.  The 
Doctor  followed  his  gaze  with  a  glance  as  absent 
and  absorbed.  He  did  not  see  the  snow  or  the 
January  sky.  His  memory  was  full  of  a  day  of 
summer  heat,  of  dust-laden  air,  trembling  under 
an  intolerable  glare  of  blue  sky. 

Captain  Evert  Peters,  U.  S.  A.,  had  been  riding 
up  the  road  that  ran  over  the  hills  near  the 
river,  stretched  across  the  broad  depression  that 
lay  between  them  and  the  rise  of  ground  far  to 
the  west,  and  disappeared  on  the  hazy  horizon. 

He  had  been  over  a  year  at  the  front ;  but  he 
had  no  stomach  for  the  ride  along  that  road. 
There  had  been  some  sharp  righting  down  below, 
near  the  old  Waters  place  ;  the  federal  attack 
had  been  repulsed  three  or  four  hours  before,  and 
ever  since  daybreak  the  wounded  had  been 
coming  in,  some  in  ambulances,  some  in  ox-carts. 
The  heavy  vehicles  labored  along  in  a  low-hang 
ing  cloud  of  dust.  Captain  Peters,  riding  leisurely 
back  toward  his  quarters,  got  sick  of  passing  the 


THE  MIDGE. 

long  train  with  its  endless  succession  of  suffering 
faces.  They  were  silent,  the  most  of  the  wounded, 
but  they  were  hot  and  thirsty  and  worn  out  with 
pain  and  fatigue ;  and  sometimes  they  groaned 
or  swore  or  asked  vainly  for  the  water  that  was 
not  at  hand.  Just  as  he  turned  from  the  road  to 
follow  a  bridle-path  that  led  across  the  fields,  a 
team  of  oxen  lumbered  by,  drawing  a  heavy 
wagon.  In  the  bottom  lay  three  men,  one  with 
a  blanket  over  his  legs.  A  negro  drove,  sitting 
sidewise  on  the  high  seat,  his  legs  swinging  over 
the  front  wheels.  He  was  whistling  with  amiable 
cheerfulness  ;  but  he  stopped  his  music  to  answer 
a  low  moan  from  the  man  with  the  blanket  over 
his  legs. 

"  D'r  ain't  none,  honey,"  he  said,  soothingly: 
"  I  done  tol'  you  a  piece  back  dah  wa'n't  none. 
I'm  dreffle  dry  myse'f,  honey — fo'  Gawd  I  wisht 
I  had  some  water  myse'f — I  do,  shuah."  His  tone 
had  an  exaggerated  earnestness,  as  if  he  were 
sympathizing  with  a  child,  and  he  spoke  of  his 
own  need  of  water  as  a  consoling  consideration. 

Captain  Peters  shook  his  canteen  —  it  was 
empty.  With  a  sigh  for  the  cruelty  of  it  all — he 
had  got  beyond  the  first  case-hardened  period  of 
soldierly  indifference — he  jerked  his  horse's  head 
to  one  side  and  left  the  road  behind  him. 

"  Seems  as  though  they  ought  to  have  water, 
anyway,"  he  said  to  himself. 

The  bridle-path  ran  through  a  piece  of  woods, 


THE  MIDGE.  ICjI 

and  Captain  Peters  took  off  his  cap  as  he  entered 
the  quiet  shade.  His  eye  rested  gratefully  on  the 
cool  spaces  among  the  trees.  He  felt  for  a 
moment  a  sense  of  relaxation ;  of  being  out  of 
the  ugly  business ;  a  more  than  physical  relief. 
It  was  only  for  a  moment,  however ;  the  sight  of 
a  man  and  a  horse  ahead  of  him  brought  him  up 
with  tense  muscles  and  alert  nerves. 

The  man  stood  by  the  horse,  tightening  the 
saddle-girth.  He  was  hardly  a  man,  the  captain 
saw,  at  a  second  glance.  He  was  tall  and  well 
built ;  but  he  could  not  well  have  been  sixteen 
years  old.  His  clothes  were  ragged  and  worn, 
and  much  too  small  for  him.  The  stained, 
patched  shirt  of  blue  flannel  was  too  tight  at  the 
collar  to  button  around  his  neck,  and  the  short 
sleeves  showed  half  of  his  white  forearm.  The 
clothes  and  the  man  did  not  belong  together. 
The  man  gave  the  lie  to  his  garments. 

Captain  Peters  had  a  good  minute  in  which  to 
make  these  observations.  His  horse  had  stepped 
softly  on  the  grass,  and  the  boy  did  not  look  up 
until  he  had  finished  his  work  at  the  girth.  Then 
he  turned  on  the  Captain  a  handsome,  thin-fea 
tured  young  face,  that  went  from  a  ghastly  white 
to  a  furious  red.  The  Captain  knew  the  face. 
He  had  seen  it  two  days  before,  at  the  railroad 
station. 

"  That's  Beecham's  boy,"  some  one  had  said. 
"  He's  come  down  to  serve  on  the  general's  staff, 


jo, 2  THE  MIDGE. 

with  his  father.  Beecham  took  him  out  of 
school  to  bring  him  here." 

"  Looks  too  pretty  for  practical  use,"  some  one 
else  had  commented. 

"  Young  man,"  said  Captain  Peters,  gravely, 
"what  are  you  doing  here  ?  " 

The  boy  began  to  pull  at  the  girth  again,  his 
face  away  from  the  speaker. 

"  I  don't  know  what  business  that  is  of  yours, 
sir,"  he  replied  with  tremulous  insolence. 

"  /  do,"  said  the  Captain  :  "  elk  !  " 

He  gave  a  click  with  his  tongue,  at  which  his 
horse  raised  his  head.  The  boy  started,  and,  look 
ing  up,  followed  with  his  eyes  the  line  in  which 
the  young  officer's  outstretched  forefinger  pointed. 
There  was  a  small  morocco  traveling  satchel  lying 
on  the  ground  at  the  feet  of  Beecham "s  boy. 

"  Pick  that  up,"  said  Captain  Peters,  calmly : 
"  lead  that  horse  of  yours — that  girth  '11  do  as  it 
is — and  come  along  with  me." 

"And  suppose  I  won't?"  asked  the  boy,  his 
blood  once  more  in  his  cheeks. 

"  I'll  shoot  you,  my  son,"  said  the  Captain. 

Young  Beecham  looked  at  him,  and  breathed 
hard  and  fast  for  a  few  irresolute  moments. 

"What  right  have  you — ?"  he  began. 

"It's  no  use  talking,  my  boy,"  the  Captain 
interrupted,  with  grim  good  nature;  "Anybody 
has  got  the  right.  Does  your  father  know  what 
you're  doing  ?  " 


THE  MIDGE. 


193 


The  question,  suddenly  and  vigorously  put, 
was  too  much  for  the  boy.  He  threw  up  his 
hands  in  a  wild  way,  and  his  voice  was  broken 
with  half-hysterical  sobs,  as  he  cried  out : 

"  No  !  I  don't  care  !  no,  he  doesn't.  Yes,  I'm  ( 
running  away.  That's  it.  You  may  call  me  a 
coward  or  anything  else  you  want  to.  I  don't 
care — I  don't  care,  I  say !  I  can't  stand  it.  It 
makes  me  sick.  I  didn't  know  what  it  was — I 
thought  I  wanted  to  come  here — but  I  didn't 
know  what  it  was.  I'm  not  afraid  of  being  killed 
— if  any  one  says  so,  he's  a  liar.  I'd  rather  die 
than  see  it  all.  Oh,  it's  awful — awful ! "  He 
pressed  his  palms  to  his  eyes,  his  ringers  clutch 
ing  his  head.  "  I've  been  up  since  five  o'clock, 
watching  them  come  in,"  he  went  on ;  "  and  it 
almost  drove  me  crazy.  For  God's  sake,  take 
me  anywhere — anywhere  where  I  won't  see 
them.  I  don't  care  what  you  do  with  me — send 
me  to  prison — only  let  me  get  away  from  this 
terrible  place." 

The  Captain's  voice  gave  no  hint  of  either 
sympathy  or  disdain,  as  he  said : 

"  Get  on  that  horse,  young  man,  and  come 
along  with  me." 

The  boy  obeyed,  silently.  He  hung  his  head. 
His  eyes  were  wet  with  the  ready  tears  of  youth. 
They  rode  on  together  through  the  woods,  hear 
ing  no  sound  save  the  breaking  of  dry  twigs 
under  their  horses'  hoofs,  and  the  rustle  and 
13 


194 


THE  MIDGE. 


whirr  of  an  occasional  frightened  bird,  flying 
away  at  their  approach. 

Finally  the  Captain  spoke. 

"  Who  gave  you  those  clothes  ?  " 

"  These  clothes  ?  "  the  boy  repeated,  anxiously. 

"  Your  father's  servant,  wasn't  it  ? — the  nigger." 

Young  Beecham  lifted  his  head. 

"  I  shan't  tell  you,"  he  said.  "  You  have  no 
right  to  ask  me  that." 

"Just  so,"  the  Captain  assented;  "that's  a  fact. 
I  haven't." 

They  passed  out  of  the  woods  in  silence,  and 
struck  the  road.  They  were  not  pushing  their 
horses ;  but  the  pace  at  which  they  traveled 
brought  them  up  with  the  rear  of  the  ambulance 
train  in  a  few  minutes.  The  last  wagon  was  the 
one  which  Captain  Peters  had  noticed  when  he 
left  the  road.  Something  had  caused  it  to  drop 
behind  the  others.  As  they  came  alongside  it, 
the  Captain  remembered  the  wounded  man  who 
had  asked  for  water. 

"  Is  there  anything  in  your  canteen  ?  "  he  de 
manded,  turning  to  the  boy,  who  was  staring  at 
the  wagon  load  with  a  sickened  fascination. 

Beecham  took  the  tin  flask  from  his  pocket. 
"  There's  water  in  it,"  he  said. 

Captain  Peters  rode  up  and  hailed  the  negro 
driver,  who  was  whistling  still,  but  somewhat  less 
cheerily,  as  though  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
day  were  beginning  to  wear  on  him,  too.  He 


THE  MIDGE. 


195 


stopped  his  team,  and  the  Captain  thrust  the 
flask  over  the  side  of  the  wagon.  Two  of  the 
occupants  were  sitting  propped  up  against  the 
back  of  the  seat.  One  was  wounded  in  the 
shoulder,  and  the  other  was  badly  cut  about  the 
head,  which  was  swathed  in  rough  bandages. 
Both  of  them  drank,  acknowledging  the  atten 
tion  with  eager  grunts.  The  negro  looked  on 
with  mutely  yearning  eyes.  When  the  second 
man  handed  the  canteen  back  it  was  empty. 
The  Captain  glanced  at  the  third  man,  the  one 
who  had  lain  with  a  blanket  over  his  legs.  The 
blanket  covered  his  whole  body  now,  and  his 
upturned  face. 

The   man   with   the   wounded   shoulder    saw 
Captain  Peters's  glance,  and  spoke. 
"  He  don't  want  no  water  no  more." 
The  other  sufferer  lifted  his  head,  swaddled  in 
dirty  white,  directed  a  wink  of  sinister  humor  at 
the  Captain,  and  said  to  his  comrade : 
"  How  do  you  know  he  don't,  Pete  ?  " 
The  Captain  looked  at  young  Beecham.     He 
was  shaking  with  an  aguish  tremor.     They  hur 
ried  on,  riding  down  the  long  line;  and  until 
they  had  taken  the  cross-road  that  led  to  Colonel 
Beecham's    quarters,   the    boy    kept    his   head 
averted,  looking  off  the  road  to  the  bare  and 
dusty  fields. 

When  they  came  in  sight  of  the  little  hill  on 
which    the   old  Waters  house   stood,  Beecham 


THE  MIDGE. 

grew  pale  and  made  a  motion  to  check  his  horse. 
He  saw  the  Captain  looking  at  him,  and  he 
pressed  on.  But  his  boy's  face  expressed  an 
emotion  of  mortal  anguish.  He  was  suffering 
as  only  young  things  can  suffer. 

There  was  a  little  clump  of  bushes  and  low 
trees  near  the  gate  of  the  place.  When  they 
reached  it,  Peters  spoke,  as  quietly  as  ever. 
"  Stay  here  till  I  come  back.  You  hear  me  ?  " 
The  boy  nodded,  with  an  effort.  Captain 
Peters  rode  up  to  the  house,  and  in  five  minutes 
he  had  said  what  he  had  to  say  to  Colonel 
Beecham,  and  the  two  men  were  walking  down 
to  the  spot  where  the  boy  stood,  motionless  as 
death,  with  his  tortured  white  face  turned  expect 
antly  toward  them. 

General  Beecham  was  more  than  twenty  years 
older,  his  black  beard  had  gone  gray,  a  score 
years  of  ambition  and  successful  struggle  had 
hardened  his  handsome  features  ;  but  the  face 
that  stared  in  blank  misery  out  of  the  window  of 
the  office  in  Washington  was  the  same  face  that 
when  Peters  had  last  seen  it  had  reflected  the 
shame  and  agony  of  that  younger  face  that  to 
day  was  but  a  memory. 

General  Beecham's  eyes  did  not  leave  the 
window  as  he  spoke  to  the  Doctor,  in  a  harsh, 
constrained  voice,  picking  his  words  with  evident 
distaste  for  speaking  at  all. 


THE  MIDGE. 


197 


"  At  the  time  I  met  you,  Captain  Peters — 
pardon  me — you  are  Captain  Peters  still  ?  " 

"  Plain  '  mister/  now,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"  Captain  Peters,"  the  General  resumed,  with 
a  slight  inclination  of  his  head,  and  a  quietly 
dignified  insistence  in  his  tone :  "  I  told  you,  at 
that  time,  that  you  had  put  me  under  the  great 
est  obligation  of  my  life.  It  has  been  the  only 
obligation  of  my  life.  I  have  never — " 

"  Excuse  me  ! "  broke  in  the  Doctor ;  and  at 
his  tone  General  Beecham  started  and  wheeled 
round  in  his  chair,  his  eyes  opening  wider  as 
they  rested  on  the  speaker.  "  /  told  you  at  that 
time,  General  Beecham,  that  you  were  under  no 
obligation  whatever  to  me.  What  I  did,  I  did 
not  do  to  oblige  you,  or  to  oblige  any  one ;  but 
because  I  felt  that  the  boy  had  a  right  to  be 
judged  mercifully." 

There  was  nearly  a  minute  of  silence  between 
the  two  men.  Then  General  Beecham  got  up 
and  went  to  the  window  and  drummed  on  the 
pane. 

"  Do  you  know — about  my  boy — afterwards  ?  " 
he  asked,  slowly. 

"  In  Virginia  ?  " 

"  Yes.  He  led  his  company,  you  know,  when 
Mcllvaine  was  shot  ?  " 

"  I  heard  about  it,"  said  the  Doctor. 

General  Beecham  came  back  from  the  window. 

"  I   have  a  letter   here,"  he  began,  with   an 


198 


THE  MIDGE. 


anxious  eagerness  in  his  manner,  "  which  Craw 
ford — Colonel  John  Crawford — you  know  him  ? 
— wrote  me  at  the  time.  I'd  like  you  to  see  it." 

His  fingers  were  shaky  as  he  took  out  his 
wallet  and  drew  from  it  a  discolored  paper,  folded 
and  cracked  at  the  folds.  He  spread  it  out  care 
fully,  almost  tenderly,  before  he  gave  it  to  the 
Doctor.  Then  he  smiled  in  a  wan  way.  "  I've 
often  wanted  to  meet  you,  Captain,"  he  went  on : 
"  to  show  it  to  you.  He  was  only  seventeen 
then.  He  would  have  been  thirty-nine  this  Janu 
ary,  if — " 

The  Doctor  pretended  to  read  the  paper  on 
his  lap ;  but  he  had  no  heart  to  try  to  make 
sense  of  it.  He  only  remembered  afterward 
that  old-fashioned  Colonel  Crawford  wrote :  "  An 
act  of  such  exceptional  Gallantry,  performed  by 
one  so  Young,  merits  the  highest  commendation 
from  his  Superior  Officer." 

General  Beecham  was  again  drumming  on  the 
window-pane. 

"  I  thank  you,  Captain  Peters,"  he  said,  some 
what  awkwardly,  "  for  pointing  out  to  me  that  it 
was  my  duty  to  look  at  this  matter  in  a  rather 
more  Christian  light — to — to  make  allowances. 
I  suppose  we  all — we  all  need  these  reminders 
from  time  to  time.  This  has  been  painful  to  me, 
of  course ;  but  I  am  glad  to  have  had  the  oppor 
tunity  of  letting  you  know  how  Buel — how  my 
boy  retrieved  his — "  he  paused — "  his  error." 


THE  MIDGE. 


I99 


"  I  knew  it  before,"  said  the  Doctor,  rising ; 
"  or  I  should  not  have  spoken." 

General  Beecham  dropped  into  his  seat,  and 
stroked  his  gray  beard  with  a  thin,  nervous  hand. 

"  Of  course,  of  course,  you  understand,  Cap 
tain  Peters — after  what  you  have  said,  I  shall 
certainly  look  into  this  matter,  and  I  shall  see 
what  can  be  done  for  your  young  friend.  Your 
opinion  of  the  case  must  naturally  go  a  long  way 
with  me.  And  you  must  pardon  me  if — if  I  did 
not  take  this  view  of  it,  at  first.  The  clemency 
of  the  department  has  been  so  outrageously  abused 
— are  you  staying  in  Washington  for  any  length 
of  time?" 

"  I  leave  to-night,"  the  Doctor  told  him. 

"  I  should  have  liked  to — to  show  you  some 
thing — well,  never  mind." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  weary  trip  from  Baltimore  to  New  York 
came  hard  on  the  Doctor.  A  sense  of  de 
pression  for  which  he  could  not  account  weighed 
on  him  with  a  discomfort  that  was  almost  physi 
cal.  He  had  succeeded  in  his  mission ;  yet  he 
felt  down-cast  and  troubled.  He  tried  to  reason 
it  out  with  himself,  but  he  could  not.  Perhaps, 
he  thought,  it  was  the  stirring  up  of  old  memories 
that  had  made  him  feel  old  himself.  Perhaps  it 
was  merely  the  natural  effect  of  a  first  absence 
from  home  and  from  the  dear  child  whose  pres 
ence  made  all  that  he  meant  when  he  said  to 
himself,  "  home." 

"  It's  my  stomach,"  he  concluded,  as  he  got 
out  of  a  University  Place  car  at  Houston  Street. 
"  I'll  go  to  Pigault's  and  get  a  nip  of  brandy  to 
settle  those  sawdust  sandwiches  at  Wilmington. 
I  shall  frighten  the  Midge  if  I  go  home  like 
this." 

Pigault's  had  changed  within  the  past  year  or 
so.  It  was  no  longer  a  brasserie — it  was  rather 
an  American  bar-room.  The  little  crowd  that 
had  formerly  come,  night  after  night,  to  drink 


THE  MIDGE.  2O1 

mild  potations  of  beer  and  play  long  games  of 
dominos,  had  somehow  melted  away.  The  Doc 
tor  had  been  the  first  to  depart ;  then  M.  Marie 
had  gone  up  town,  to  teach  in  a  fashionable  school 
(and  ultimately  to  run  away  with  a  German  brew 
er's  daughter,  and  to  be  forgiven  and  made  a  slave 
of  authority  among  the  slaves  in  the  brewery 
counting-room);  Mr.  Martin  was  dead,  and  little 
Potain  was  in  the  lunatic  asylum  on  Blackwell's 
Island,  all  day  long  reading  a  newspaper  aloud  to 
an  imaginary  wife.  And,  for  one  reason  or  an 
other,  they  had  all  deserted  the  place.  The 
"young  fellows  "  of  the  quarter  had  it  pretty  well 
to  themselves  now.  There  was  a  pool-table  in 
the  rear  of  the  room.  Mme.  Pigault  sat  no  more 
behind  the  desk.  A  barkeeper  with  a  black 
moustache  and  a  white  apron  mixed  drinks  with 
agility  and  despatch,  shoved  his  compositions  to 
one  set  of  customers  with  his  left  hand,  and 
grasped  a  fresh  bottle  in  his  right  as  he  hailed  the 
next  lot  with  "  Well,  gents,  what'll  it  be  ?  " 

Half  way  down  the  counter  swung  a  screen, 
shutting  off  the  further  half  from  the  sight  of 
people  at  the  door.  There  was  a  general  deteri 
oration,  moral  and  material,  about  the  place;  but 
this  was  its  last  and  worst  sign. 

The  Doctor,  who  had  all  his  life  drank  what 
he  had  a  right  to  drink  in  the  face  of  all  the  world, 
carefully  placed  himself  between  the  screen  and 
the  door,  and  asked  for  a  "pony"  of  brandy.  As 


202  THE  MIDGE. 

the  barkeeper  poured  it  out,  he  heard  a  familiar 
voice  at  the  other  side  of  the  screen.  Bending 
forward  enough  to  glance  down  the  bar,  he  saw 
Piero  and  young  Goubaud,  the  puffy-faced,  weak, 
absinthe-drinking  son  of  the  house  of  Goubaud. 

The  place  had  indeed  run  down.  The  Doctor 
was  no  aristocrat,  neither  had  the  line  of  caste 
been  sharply  drawn  in  the  old  brasserie,  as  he 
remembered  it ;  but  such  a  couple  as  this  would 
never  have  been  allowed  to  hang  over  the  bar  in 
the  days  when  Mme.  Pigault's  comely  presence 
graced  the  other  side  of  that  piece  of  furniture. 
Goubaud's  voice  was  husky,  and  Piero  was  talk 
ing  so  loud  and  laughing  so  much,  that  the  Doc 
tor  felt  sure  that  the  man  of  maritime  ways  was 
taking  a  sailor's  privilege. 

At  the  moment,  he  was  urgently  asserting  that 
some  one  was  a  good  man. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  "  he  is  a  good  man.  I 
know  'im — ten — fifteen — twenty  yeah.  He  good 
man — fairs'  rate  boss  vair'  damn  good  man." 

Young  Goubaud  had  his  doubts  about  this,  and 
expressed  them  with  thick  earnestness,  reiterating 
after  the  fashion  of  a  man  who  exploits  an  old 
grievance. 

"  I  do'  know,"  he  grumbled, "  I  do'  know  'bout 
zat.  I  tell  you,  seh,  I  do'  know  'bout  zat.  Ouat 
fo'  he  ouant  take  money  out  my  pipple's  pocket 
fo'  ?  I  tell  you,  M'sieu'  Piero,  I  tell  you,  seh,  he 
don't  had  no  right  fo'  to  take  zat  ge'l  away  f  'om 


THE  MIDGE. 


203 


w'eh  she  ouas  sen'  to  bo'd.  I  tell  you,  M'sieu' 
Piero,  zat  ouas  not  ho-no-nz-ble — no.  My  poo' 
fazzer,  zat  take  ze  money  out  f'om  his  pocket, 
same  you  put  yo'  hand  in  an'  take  it  out." 

"  Ouell,"  said  Piero,  consolingly,  "  zat  all  a-ight 
now — he  don'  kip  her  no  mo',  I  guess.  Zat 
young  fel',  he  take  her  away  prit'  soon,  I  guess. 
She  laike  young  man  betteh  as  ol'  man." 

"  Zat  se'v  him  raight,  M'sieu  Piero,"  said 
young  Goubaud,  with  Rhadamanthine  severity : 
I  tell  you,  M'sieu  Piero,  I  tell  you — " 

Piero  laughed  loudly,  the  humor  of  the  situa 
tion  growing  on  him. 

"  I  guess  he  don'  kip  her  fo'  himse'f  no  more 
— young  fel'  get  her — ol'  man  ain't  got  no  show." 
And  he  laughed  still  more  noisily. 

The  Doctor,  facing  the  screen,  half  raised  his 
clenched  fists.  Then  a  look  of  disgust  came 
over  his  face ;  the  steely  fire  went  out  of  his  eyes, 
and  he  turned  away,  and  walked  out  of  the  place 
utterly  sick  at  heart. 

The  barkeeper  looked  at  the  untouched  glass 
and  the  quarter  of  a  dollar  lying  beside  it.  He 
poured  the  brandy  back  into  the  bottle.  "  Old  gent 
seems  to  be  pretty  well  rattled,"  he  said  to  himself. 
Then  he  put  the  quarter  in  the  till,  took  out  ten 
cents  in  change,  and  carefully  put  the  ten  cents 
under  the  cheese-safe  at  the  end  of  the  bar,  where 

there  were  various  other  coins  already  deposited. 
***** 


204 


THE  MIDGE. 


The  Doctor  could  hardly  bear  to  go  on  his  way 
and  meet  the  Midge,  yet  he  did,  and  so  controlled 
himself  that  she  saw  only  his  obvious  fatigue  and 
exhaustion.  She  made  him  go  through  the  mo 
tions  of  eating  a  bit  of  supper,  and  gave  him  a 
glass  of  the  hottest  hot  punch  that  affection  and 
boiling  water  could  produce,  and  then  sent  him 
to  bed.  She  had  asked  him  nothing  about  the 
business  on  which  he  had  gone — not  even 
whether  he  had  been  successful  or  no.  She  had 
only  expressed  her  delight  at  having  him  back, 
treating  him  royally  to  her  rare  kisses,  and  rally 
ing  him  brightly  on  his  desertion  of  her.  And 
he  had  taken  her  caresses  and  had  returned 
them,  with  a  sense  of  absolute  shame,  with  a 
feeling  of  guilt,  as  though  he  were  receiving 
something  under  false  pretenses. 

When  he  got  into  his  own  room — he  did  not 
go  to  bed — he  tried  to  think  it  all  over.  It  was 
shocking — it  was  shameful — but  he  had  to  admit 
that  it  was  something  that  he  should  have  fore 
seen.  It  was  a  vile  thing  that  there  should  be 
people  to  talk  and  think  as  those  two  louts  in 
the  bar-room  had  talked  and  thought.  But  then 
he  had  always  known  what  the  world  was.  Was 
any  one  to  blame — except  himself — because  he 
had  found  out  what  he  ought  to  have  expected, 
if  he  had  used  his  brains  ?  He  had  been  watch 
ing  the  Midge,  furtively,  in  the  half  hour  during 
which  she  had  let  him  sit  up  and  be  nursed  and 


THE  MIDGE.  20$ 

petted.  But  he  had  had  no  need  to  make  the 
inspection.  From  the  moment  that  he  had 
heard  Piero's  speech  the  Midge  had  ceased  to  be 
the  Midge  to  him — she  had  become  a  woman. 
He  marveled  how  it  was  that  he  had  looked  at 
her  before  and  had  made  no  more  of  her  sex 
than  if  she  had  been  his  sister,  or  a  piece  of 
furniture.  He  could  never  think  of  her  in  that 
way  again.  She  was  a  woman.  She  was  not 
only  a  woman,  but  a  pretty  woman.  And  more 
than  that,  she  was  a  charming  and  fascinating 
woman,  radiant  with  that  mysterious  power 
which  is  given  to  some  women  irrespective  of 
beauty  or  cleverness — the  power  of  making  men 
admire  and  love  and  worship  and  long  for  them. 
He  had  seen  it  all  before,  of  course,  but  he 
had  not  been  conscious  that  he  saw.  Now  he 
saw,  indeed.  He  had  looked  at  her  a  thousand 
times  with  fond  affection,  as  she  moved  about 
the  rooms,  busying  herself  with  little  duties, 
singing  softly  to  herself,  fetching  and  carrying  this 
or  that  for  his  comfort  and  convenience.  But 
she  had  been,  in  a  way,  a  part  of  him,  a  part  of 
his  life.  He  had  had  no  consciousness  of  her  as 
a  distinct  being — as  one  of  the  women  who  make 
up  the  other  half  of  our  world.  Now,  all  of  a 
sudden,  he  could  look  at  her  from  a  distance, 
and  take  note  and  cognizance  of  her  as  though 
she  were  a  stranger.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  it 
meant  something  to  him  that  she  was  graceful  as 


2o6  THE  MIDGE. 

she  moved,  as  she  lifted  her  head,  as  she  turned 
her  delicate  white  wrists ;  that  her  face  was  full 
of  quick  changing  expressions  ;  that  her  voice 
had  tones  like  music,  mysteriously  expressive, 
provoking,  alluring;  that  she  could,  when  she 
pleased,  turn  to  him  and  make  manifest  in  her 
whole  bearing  a  thought  of  love  or  tenderness 
that  was  in  itself  a  caress.  He  did  not  formulate 
this  in  clean-cut  thought ;  but  as  an  emotion  it 
was  forcibly  present  and  real  to  him.  And  in 
all  the  whirl  of  puzzled  feeling  and  thinking  in 
which  he  found  himself,  one  idea  came  over  and 
over  again  to  him,  and  he  drove  it  angrily  away, 
and  tried  to  put  it  aside,  and  was  ashamed  that  it 
should  come  back  to  him — over  and  over  again. 
*  *  *  *  * 

The  next  day  he  went  to  see  Paul  Hathaway. 
Mr.  Hathaway  was  living  in  a  certain  caravan 
sary  in  Clinton  Place,  that  did  not  call  itself  a 
lodging  house,  but  that  had  "  furnished  rooms  to 
let."  It  had  been  a  grand  old  house  in  its  time. 
The  mahogany  folding-doors  were  there  still, 
though  they  never  rolled  back  in  their  grooves, 
opening  the  great  archway  between  the  two 
parlors ;  for  an  actress  had  the  back  parlor,  and 
a  chiropodist  was  in  front.  A  great  many  people 
knew  that  old  house  who  would  not  care  to  boast 
of  their  acquaintance  with  it.  Many  lively  and 
rather  disreputable  young  Bohemians,  and  many 
dull  and  respectable  dry-goods  clerks  have  occu- 


THE  MIDGE, 


2O7 


pied  those  dingy  rooms.  The  men  who  gave 
that  word  "  Bohemian "  its  meaning  to  New 
Yorkers,  men  who  live  now  only  as  traditions ; 
men  who  have  reformed  themselves  into  Philis 
tine  solidity,  men  who  have  made  themselves 
great  and  honored  in  literature ;  men  who  are 
still  staking  body  and  soul  against  drink  and 
poverty  and  general  degradation — scores  of  such 
men  have  taken  their  turn  in  that  queer  lodging- 
house,  and  have  gone  on  their  hurried  way 
through  youth. 

Many  a  bright  boy  has  clattered  over  the 
marble  pavement  of  that  great  hall-way,  swung 
himself  up  the  mighty  spiral  staircase,  bolted 
into  his  little  room  on  the  third  or  fourth  floor, 
and  found  the  letter  there  from  the  great  maga 
zine,  respectfully  declining  his  poem.  Then  he 
has  cursed  the  magazine  for  a  ring-ridden  hum 
bug,  run  by  a  clique  of  selfish  old-fashioned 
harpies  of  literature,  in  league  with  that  hypo 
critical  dunderhead,  the  complimentary,  polite, 
regretful,  manuscript-returning  editor.  And  he 
has  dashed  off,  of  a  Saturday  night,  maybe,  to 
forget  it  and  seek  a  happier  world  in  the  wretched 
holes  so  near  at  hand,  with  vile  drink  and  with 
viler  company.  And  on  the  morrow  he  has 
wakened  to  find  in  a  headache  and  an  empty 
purse  the  result  of  all  such  experiments  in  con 
solation,  and  he  has  sent  off  a  letter  to — well,  the 
likeliest  man  he  knew,  asking  for  a  dollar  or  two, 


2o8  THE  MIDGE. 

for  God's  sake:  and  if  the  dollar  or  two  came,  he 
has  bought  brandy  and  soda,  and  has  sat  him 
down  to  write  a  poem  on  his  headache,  which  he 
has  sent  to  the  magazine  he  cursed  the  night  be 
fore,  and  to  which  he  has  sworn  a  hundred  times 
never  to  apply  again,  and  from  which  he  surely 
gets  back  that  liberal-spirited  lay.  And  if  the 
dollar  or  two  did  not  come,  why,  he  lay  in  bed, 
and  listened  to  the  church-bells,  and  crawled  out 
when  the  freshness  of  the  day  was  gone,  to  wait, 
breakfastless,  for  dinner-time. 

What  becomes  of  such  boys  ?  One  whom  I 
knew,  lodging  in  that  very  house,  is  now  a 
"prominent"  leather-dealer  in  the  swamp.  He 
would  draw  his  check  for  a  thousand  dollars  if  I 
would  let  him  destroy  that  scrap-book  of  his 
poems  now  in  my  possession.  Another  is  the 
distinguished  and  successful  litterateur — there  is 
a  point  where  a  successful  writer  ceases  to  be  a 
literary  man  and  clearly  becomes  a  litterateur — 
who  is  now  in  Europe,  purchasing  choice  olive- 
wood  for  his  library  shelves.  A  third  is  in  a 
little  cemetery  near  Schenectady,  where  the 
f  Seneca  grass  fills  the  wind  with  its  old-time  scent, 
all  summer  long. 

The  Doctor  climbed  the  long  dark  sweep 
of  three  stairs,  and  entered  Hathaway's  tiny 
room,  where  the  yellow  walls  were  covered  with 
water-color  sketches.  There  were  other  sketches 
tied  up  in  a  bundle,  and  the  open  trunk  was  evi- 


THE  MIDGE. 


209 


dently  in  process  of  packing.  The  Doctor  saw 
it  and  smiled.  He  had  been  a  boy,  and  had  dis 
counted  Fate,  in  his  time. 

Hathaway  looked  haggard  and  tired ;  but  his 
eyes  were  brighter,  for  the  Doctor  had  sent  him 
a  cheery  note  from  Washington,  and  his  sky  had 
begun  to  clear  already.  Still,  he  was  very  humble 
and  gentle,  and  his  humility  and  submission 
seemed  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  his  bright, 
aggressive  youth. 

He  gave  the  Doctor  his  one  chair,  and  sat  on 
the  bed,  which  was  not  yet  made  up,  while  he 
listened  to  the  report.  He  thanked  his  friend 
gratefully  and  simply ;  but  his  cheerfulness  did 
not  come  back  to  him.  He  went  over  his  story 
again,  and  the  Doctor  learned  of  a  number  of 
palliative  facts  which  the  boy  had  been  too  proud 
to  adduce  in  his  own  defense  while  his  fate  was 
in  the  balance. 

When  it  was  done,  the  Doctor  sat  looking  at 
the  young  man,  as  he  lay  half-stretched-out  on 
the  tumbled  bed.  Neither  spoke  for  a  while,  and 
then  Hathaway  said,  staring  hard  at  the  small  pil 
low,  out  of  which  he  was  trying  to  pluck  a  feather : 

"I  suppose,  after  this,  sir,  that  you'll  object 
— that  is,  that  you  won't  want — that  you  had 
rather  I  wouldn't  see  Miss  Lois — Miss  Talbot." 

The  Doctor  rose,  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
trousers  pockets,  and  stood  looking  down  at  his 
boots. 

14 


2io  THE  MIDGE. 

"  No,"  he  said,  after  a  while,  drawing  in  his 
breath  through  his  closed  lips,  and  speaking 
thoughtfully :  "  no,  my  boy,  I  had  rather  you 
would  see  her.  That  is,  if  it's  going  to  prevent  you 
from  seeing — the  kind  of  thing  you  have  seen." 

"You're  too — too  devilish  good  to  me,  Dr. 
Peters,"  cried  the  boy. 

"  Nonsense,"  said  the  Doctor,  absent-mindedly. 
He  was  thinking  how  the  Midge  and  he  between 
them  could  be  of  help  to  young  Hathaway. 

"  Do  you,  don't  you  think — perhaps  I  ought — " 
the  young  man  began,  stammering.  The  Doctor 
smiled. 

"  I  think  not,  Hathaway,"  he  said :  "  there's 
no  reason  why  she  should  ever  know  anything 
about  it.  It's  closed  and  done  with  now,  and 
you  know  more  than  you  did,  and  we  might  as 
well  drop  the  subject.  Besides  " — his  face  grew 
grave — "  women  can  not  be  made  to  look  at  these 
things  as  men  do.  You  don't  want  to  think  of  it." 
He  grew  graver  still  as  he  considered  the  possi 
bility.  He  knew  the  Midge's  code  of  honor — his 
own,  passed  through  the  close  small  filter  of  a 
woman's  ignorant  purity.  He  shook  his  head 
and  put  the  question  aside.  "  Come  around  to 
morrow  evening,"  he  said:  "  I  shall  probably  have 
heard  from  Washington  by  that  time." 

When  Hathaway  came  around  that  next  even 
ing,  the  Doctor  had  heard  from  Washington. 
General  Beecham  wrote  that  Mr.  Hathaway 


THE  MIDGE,  2  1 1 

would  be  permitted  to  resign,  without  further 
investigation  into  the  charges  already  preferred, 
and  that  Sefior  Garcia  had  been  informed  that  if 
he  was  wise  he  would  refrain  from  pressing  his 
demands,  and  would  thus  avoid  certain  inquiries 
which  our  representatives  would  otherwise  be 
instructed  to  make  into  his  financial  transactions 
with  certain  gentlemen  in  the  naval  service  of  the 
United  States. 

The  letter  enclosed  to  Captain  Peters  an  item 
from  a  newspaper  of  1864,  giving  an  account  of 
the  erection  of  a  tablet  in  the  college  chapel  at 
Williamstown,  to  the  memory  of  Lieutenant 
Buel  Beecham,  the  gallant  young  soldier,  who 
fell  in  the  Battle  of  the  Wilderness — a  tribute 
from  his  affectionate  class-mates. 

***** 

As  he  was  on  his  way  home  from  Clinton  Place, 
the  Doctor  met  Father  Dube,  slowly  pacing  down 
past  the  dreary  gray  front  of  the  University  build 
ing,  which  looked,  that  dull  winter  day,  more 
than  ever  like  some  huge  pasteboard  toy. 

The  two  men  greeted  each  other  warmly,  for 
they  had  not  met  often  of  late. 

"  I  have  not  seen  you  in  an  age,"  said  the 
Father,  pressing  Doctor  Peters's  hand.  "  Give  me 
news  of  yourself,  and  of  the  little  one.  She  is  not 
married  yet,  eh?" 

"  No,"  replied  the  Doctor,  uneasily  ;  "  I  can't 
find  any  man  good  enough  for  her." 


THE  MIDGE. 

"  No,"  assented  Father  Dube ;  "  I  know  but 
one,  and  he  is — too  modest." 

His  eyes  made  his  meaning  clear.  The  Doc 
tor  flushed  hotly.  Dube  laid  a  large  hand  on  his 
shoulder. 

"  Why  should  I  not  say  it,"  he  remonstrated, 
kindly.  "  I  am  sure  it  would  be  for  the  best,  for 
both  of  you.  It  is  only  we  priests  who  ought 
not  to  marry.  For  you  others,  it  is  a  duty." 

"  You  oughtn't  to  talk  in  that  way  to  a  man 
of  my  age,  Dube,"  said  the  Doctor.  He  was 
awkward  and  uncomfortable,  and  conscious  of 
himself. 

"  Of  your  age  ?  What  is  your  age  ?  You  are 
forty — forty-five  ?  " 

"  Forty-six." 

"  Bah !  what  is  that  ?  You  are  young — you 
are  strong ;  you  lead  a  good  life — you  are  young. 
I  am  sixty-four.  It  is  not  so  terrible  to  be  sixty- 
four.  Why  should  you  not  marry?  Why  not  ? 
Will  some  stranger — the  first  boy  you  meet — 
will  he  be  so  kind  to  her  as  you  ?  Ah,  well,  I 
have  said  enough.  You  will  not  come  to  me 
when  you  marry.  But  I  will  bless  you  all  the 
same.  Good-bye,  my  friend." 

The  Doctor  walked  rapidly  across  the  Park. 
He  felt  like  a  boy,  like  a  fool,  but  his  heart  was 
beating  fast,  and  he  was  saying  to  himself,  while 
his  cheeks  burnt : 

"  Why  not  ?— why  not  ?  " 


CHAPTER  XV. 

WHY  not  ?  He  had  refused  to  entertain  the 
thought ;  he  had  turned  it  away  from  him 
and  bade  it  begone.  But  it  had  been  brought 
back  to  him,  and  now  that  he  was  forced  to  let  it 
in,  and  to  look  it  in  the  face,  what  was  there 
about  it  that  should  make  him  refuse  it  hospi 
tality  ?  It  was  not  a  mean  or  unworthy  thought 
• — it  seemed,  indeed,  when  once  he  looked  at  it 
face  to  face,  simple,  natural  and  beautiful.  After 
all,  wherein  was  it  strange  ?  When  a  man  and  a 
woman  loved  each  other,  they  married.  And  did 
not  he  love  this  woman,  and  did  not  she  love 
him  ?  Only — was  it  with  the  same  love  ? 

Ah,  he  was  gone.  From  the  moment  that  he- 
asked  himself  that  question,  and  that  the  answer 
ing  doubt  came  with  its  sudden  chill  to  his  heart, 
the  Doctor  had  slipped  from  the  safe  ground  of 
pure  reason,  and  was  groping  about  in  that  dim 
wild  dreamland  of  uncertainty  in  which,  since 
time  began,  every  lover  has  walked  his  appointed 
time;  in  which  every  lover  shall  walk  until  time 
shall  end.  There  are  no  exemptions  or  exceptions, 
there  are  no  classes  or  conditions  for  those  who 

213 


214 


THE  MIDGE. 


enter  that  strange  limbo.  Great  or  small,  wise 
or  foolish,  they  wander  hither  and  thither  in  the 
mist,  led  by  flickering  lights  and  great  revealing 
flashes,  cast  down  in  deathly  darkness,  and 
wakened  again  by  a  warm  glow  on  the  far  hori 
zon.  And  so  they  must  wander,  until  they  go 
out  of  the  place  by  one  of  two  gates.  And  for 
those  that  go  out  by  the  one  gate,  the  light  of  the 
morning  is  on  their  faces ;  and  for  those  that  go 
out  by  the  other  gate,  may  God  have  pity  on 
them  ! 

He  was  no  better  off  now,  for  all  his  years  and 
his  brains  and  his  doctoring  and  his  soldiering, 
than  the  veriest  boy  that  ever  tied  his  heart  to  a 
ribbon  or  went  at  night  to  look  at  a  common 
brick-and-mortar  house  because  of  a  woman 
sleeping  somewhere  in  it. 

He  had  to  ask  the  same  question  of  Fate, 
and  to  ask  it  with  the  same  knowledge  that  the 
answer  could  not  be  affected  by  any  will  or  wish 
of  his  of  the  woman  he  loved.  It  was  to  be,  or 
it  was  not  to  be,  and  he,  and  she,  perhaps,  must 
wait  for  the  revelation. 

He  was  at  his  own  door  before  he  knew  it, 
and  he  found  himself  wondering  how  he  should 
meet  the  Midge.  Two  minutes  laterK  he  found 
himself  meeting  her  and  talking  with  her  calmly 
and  quietly,  without  embarrassment,  without  con 
fusion,  with  no  sense  of  awkwardness  whatever. 

For  the  first  time  he  looked  at  this  comrade 


THE  MIDGE. 


215 


of  years,  at  this  child  grown  a  woman  under  his 
care ;  and  knew  that  he  wanted  her  for  his  wife. 
As  far  as  he  could  make  out,  he  ought  to  have 
been  nervous  and  constrained.  Perhaps  he 
ought  to  have  been  ashamed  of  himself.  But, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  not  nervous,  or  con 
strained,  or  ashamed.  He  did  not  understand 
the  change  in  his  own  attitude ;  but  he  was  con 
scious  of  it.  An  hour  before,  he  had  blushed  at 
the  mere  idea.  Now  he  was  as  shameless  about 
it  as  if  he  had  been  King  Cophetua  and  she  a 
beggar-maid  with  no  choice  in  the  matter. 

In  truth,  as  he  looked  at  her  and  listened  to 
her,  he  was  aware  within  himself  of  a  certain 
feeling  of  triumphant  superiority.  It  was  for 
him  to  take  this  dear  and  lovely  creature  by  the 
hand  and  to  say  to  her:  "  You  thought  that  this 
was  all — this  sweet  companionship  and  tender 
affection.  But  there  is  more — infinitely  more 
and  infinitely  better,  and  I  will  lead  you  to  it." 

The  Midge  went  to  bed  early  that  evening,  as 
though  in  obedience  to  some  unspoken  wish  of 
his.  He  wanted  to  be  alone ;  to  "  have  a  think," 
and  he  had  it,  by  the  fire,  far  into  the  night.  He 
had  looked  forward  to  this  hour  of  self-counsel, 
but  when  it  came,  it  was  not  what  he  had  ex 
pected  it  would  be.  He  had  thought  that  he 
would  reason  out  with  himself  the  question  of 
his  right  to  love  the  Midge.  He  found  that  he 
regarded  that  question  as  settled ;  that  he  looked 


2i6  THE  MIDGE. 

upon  it  as  an  accepted  premise,  upon  which  he 
could  base — upon  which  he  was  basing  his  cal 
culations  for  the  future.  He  was  surprised  at 
this  ;  he  had  not  yet  realized  that  when  a  man  is 
in  love,  his  intellectual  faculties  are  handed  over 
to  the  control  of  the  mysterious  power  within 
him  which  takes  him  in  charge  and  makes  an 
inspired  fool  of  him ;  and  that  he  himself  does 
not  know  how  he  will  argue  out  the  simplest 
problem  in  the  privacy  of  his  own  mind.  But  it 
seemed  to  him  that,  in  some  mysterious  way,  he 
had  quite  settled  this  one  thing.  Indeed,  if  he 
thought  at  all  of  the  past,  it  was  only  to  try  to 
trace  this  new  love  back  over  the  lines  of  the 
old  ;  to  identify  the  two,  and  to  prove  to  himself 
that  they  had  always  been  the  same ;  that  from 
the  first  he  had  loved  her  with  this  very  love, 
that  had  only  been  disguised  as  something  like 
parental  affection  until  the  time  came  for  its  dis 
closure  as  a  greater  and  higher  thing. 

But  most  of  his  thoughts — which  were  not 
thoughts,  he  found  ;  rather  imaginings  —  dealt 
with  the  present  and  the  future. 

One  idea  came  to  him,  at  first  with  a  chill,  then 
with  a  sudden  glow  of  pleased  and  suggestive 
anticipation — that  she  did  not  know  all  this  :  that 
she  must  be  taught  to  love — must  be  wooed. 
He  must  begin  a  courtship.  Indeed,  he  felt  as 
though  he  had  yet  to  be  introduced  to  the 
woman  he  had  to  court. 


THE  MIDGE. 

Just  here,  the  Doctor's  memory  took  an  odd 
backward  twist.  He  remembered  certain  boyish 
thoughts  of  a  certain  Alida  Jansen,  and  he 
understood  now  why  he  had  been  glad  when  he 
woke  up  in  his  little  attic  bed-room,  and  thought 
that  singing-school  was  to  be  held  that  night. 

The  courtship  began  the  next  day,  but  not 
quite  in  the  way  the  Doctor  had  planned.  He 
was  much  surprised  to  find  that  his  manner 
toward  the  Midge  had  already  changed,  uncon 
sciously  and  involuntarily.  It  distinctly  asserted 
a  masterful  superiority. 

Beyond  this,  he  did  not  make  any  active  move. 
And  for  the  next  few  days,  in  fact,  for  the  next 
few  weeks,  he  had  business  other  than  his  own 
to  attend  to — and  it  was  his  custom  to  attend  to 
other  people's  business  before  his  own.  Mr. 
Paul  Hathaway,  now  out  of  the  navy,  had  to  be 
established  in  life  as  a  self-supporting  citizen. 
This  was  done,  after  a  little  while,  more  success 
fully  than  the  Doctor  could  have  hoped.  The 
sympathies  of  Parker  Prout  and  Jack  Wilder 
being1  enlisted,  Hathaway  sold  some  sketches  in 
Nassau  Street,  and  got  some  odd  jobs  on  the 
Morning  Record,  which  was  now  "  illustrated," 
with  'outline  cuts,  conceived  in  the  utmost  sim 
plicity  of  art. 

But  all  this  involved  a  great  deal  of  consulta 
tion  and  discussion  and  speculation  among  the 
three  of  them — for  the  Midge  was  at  once  called 


2i8  THE  MIDGE. 

into  their  councils.  Hathaway  called  almost 
every  day,  and  they  held  long  debates  over  the 
smallest  move  he  took.  The  Midge  was  a 
modest  authority  in  matters  of  art,  and  the 
Doctor  was  general  business-adviser.  The  Doc 
tor  felt  a  particular  pride  in  acquitting  himself 
well  of  his  duties.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was 
doing  himself  credit  in  the  eyes  of  the  Midge, 
and  he  was  proud  and  pleased  when  he  con 
ducted  Mr.  Hathaway's  affairs  to  a  fortunate 
issue. 

And  Hathaway's  affairs  certainly  flourished. 
Everybody  pronounced  his  sketches  clever,  and 
his  draughtsmanship  worthy  of  an  older  hand. 
Parker  Prout  said  he  was  going  to  be  a  great 
artist,  and  there  was  no  doubt  whatever  that  he 
was  facile,  adaptive  and  intelligent.  Before  the 
spring  was  far  advanced,  he  was  earning  a 
modest  living  for  himself,  and  had  repaid  a 
small  loan  from  the  Doctor. 

So  encouraging  were  Mr.  Hathaway's  pros 
pects  that  in  March  he  engaged  in  a  grand  com 
petition.  The  New  York  Montlily  proposed  to 
send  a  ship  around  the  world ;  and  a  famous 
writer  was  to  recount  the  history  of  the  voyage. 
The  illustrations  were  to  be  made  by  a  famous 
artist,  assisted  by  a  novice  in  art.  All  novices 
in  art  were  invited  to  compete  for  the  honor,  by 
sending  sketches  to  a  chosen  committee  of  artists. 
The  only  conditions  were  that  they  should  be 


THE  MIDGE. 


219 


native  born  and  under  thirty  years  of  age.  With 
both  of  these  conditions  Mr.  Hathaway  could 
comply.  He  sent  in  his  sketches,  and  in  due 
time  was  notified  that  he  was  one  of  five  most 
promising  contestants,  and  that  the  prize  would 
be  awarded  to  the  one  of  these  best  qualified,  by 
nature  and  training,  for  the  work.  Mr.  Hathaway 
presented  himself  before  the  committee  with  a 
fluttering  but  confident  heart. 

This  came  about  toward  the  end  of  the  month, 
and  the  breath  of  April  was  in  the  air  when,  one 
warm  evening,  the  Doctor  and  the  Midge  sat 
before  the  ghost  of  a  fire.  He  felt  honestly  and 
innocently  proud  of  having  been  able  to  help 
Hathaway,  and  he  could  hold  it  in  no  longer. 

"  I  think  our  young  friend  is  pretty  fairly 
launched — Hathaway,  I  mean,"  he  said. 

The  Midge  was  sewing,  bending  low  over  her 
work,  so  that  the  gaslight  fell  on  her  dark  hair. 
She  paused  to  give  a  woman's  speculative,  ob 
servant  look  at  the  stuff  in  her  lap  before  she  re 
sponded. 

"  You  think  it  is  all  right  for  him — for  the 
future?"  she  said. 

"  I  think  it's  a  sure  thing  for  him — he's  almost 
certain  to  get  it." 

"  Then  he  will  go  away  ?  " 

"Why  yes.  But  it's  only  for  a  year  or  so. 
He'll  enjoy  the  voyage." 

The  Midge  said  nothing. 


22O  THE  MIDGE. 

"It's  a  grand  opportunity  for  any  young  man," 
he  went  on,  meditatively ;  "  it  will  be  the  making 
of  him  in  his — his  business." 

"  Is  it  not  dangerous  ?  "  hazarded  the  young 
woman. 

The  Doctor  fairly  laughed. 

"  My  dear  child ! "  he  remonstrated,  "  after  a 
man  has  been  knocking  about  for  years  in  one 
of  those  old  tubs  that  we  call  men-of-war !  Why 
he'll  think  he's  safer  than  he's  ever  been  before 
in  his  life. 

Dr.  Peters  filled  and  lit  his  pipe  before  the 
Midge  spoke  again. 

"  Evert,"  she  said,  "  I  do  not  wish  to  ask  too 
much,  or  what  I  should  not.  But  there  was 
some  trouble  that  he  was  in — Mr.  Hathaway — 
when  you  went  to  Washington.  It  was  trouble, 
was  it  not  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes,"  he  answered,  doubtfully. 

"  I  do  not  want  to  know,"  she  hurried  on, 
"  what  it  was — I  do  not  ask  that.  But  was  it — 
was  it  something — it  was  nothing  against  him  ? 
— nothing  wrong. 

The  Doctor  had  been  prepared  for  this,  in 
some  sort,  from  the  first;  but  it  cost  him  a  quick 
mental  wrench  to  get  his  conscience  and  his  logic 
in  accord  as  he  replied,  with  great  firmness  and 
decision : 

"  No,  my  dear." 

He  held  himself  justified  in  saying  this.    What- 


THE  MIDGE.  221 

ever  wrong  had  been  done,  it  was  repented  of, 
atoned  for,  and  would  never  be  repeated.  To 
the  Doctor  it  was  as  though  it  had  not  been. 
What  right  had  he  even  to  speak  of  a  cancelled 
sin  as  a  present  fact  ? 

"  No,"  he  said  once  more  :  "  if  there  had  been 
anything  of  that  kind,  my  dear — anything  to 
make  us  alter  our  relations  toward  the  lad,  I 
should  have  told  you.  But  there  was  not.  He 
was  indiscreet,  I  suppose ;  but-=— well,  we're  all 
more  or  less  fools,  all  the  humans  made  on  any 
pattern  known  up  to  date ;  and  he  isn't  any  such 
startling  variety  of  fool  that  we  need  to  be  too 
particular  with  him.  No,  no,  he's  a  good  boy, 
my  dear." 

"  I  am  glad,"  she  said  softly,  resting  her  chin 
on  her  hand  as  she  looked  into  the  fire.  "  That 
there  was  nothing  bad — that  is  well.  I  could 
not  bear  it." 

She  spoke  with  emphasis.  The  Doctor,  still 
smoking  meditatively,  nodded  approvingly. 

"  I  know  how  you  feel  about  those  things,  my 
love,"  he  said. 

She  began  again,  a  little  nervously. 

"  Evert,  it — it — you  do  not  think  it  strange 
that  I  ask  such  a  question  about  his  private 
affairs  ?  He  would  not  think  it  was  something  I 
had  no  right  to  ask  about  ?  " 

"  I  should  think  he'd  feel  very  much  flattered 
at  the  interest  you  take  in  him,"  the  Doctor  re- 


222  THE  MIDGE. 

plied,  reassuringly.  "  Indeed,  I  think  you  have 
been  particularly  friendly  and  kind  to  him,  Midge. 
He  ought  to  be  grateful  to  you." 

She  rose  quickly,  and  came  and  seated  herself 
on  the  arm  of  his  chair. 

"  No,  it  is  you  who  have  been  good  to  him — 
you  need  not  tell  me — I  know  it.  You  are  good 
to  everybody,  Evert."  She  bent  over  and  kissed 
him.  He  smiled  with  a  deep  gratification.  It 
was  this  praise  that  he  had  wanted  beyond  any 
other  reward  for  well-doing.  "  You  have  done 
everything  for  him,  Evert." 

"  No,  my  dear,"  he  corrected  her,  with  a 
pleased  generosity,  "  he's  done  pretty  well  every 
thing  for  himself.  You  can't  do  much  for  a  man. 
He's  got  to  do  the  doing,  in  the  end.  Hathaway's 
a  fine  fellow.  I  hope  he'll  come  back  from  this 
trip  and  settle  down  and  make  a  position  for 
himself,  right  here  where  we  can  see  him.  And 
we  shan't  be  sorry  that  we  gave  him  a  lift  when 
he  first  needed  it,  shall  we,  little  one  ?  "  He  took 
her  disengaged  hand  in  his.  The  other  fluttered 
to  and  fro  a  dangling  trail  of  fancy-work.  The 
Doctor  glanced  at  the  flimsy  stuff  with  careless 
interest,  and  smiled.  He  thought  how  happy  he 
could  be,  in  all  the  years  to  come,  sitting  thus  by 
the  fire  and  seeing  her  work  inexplicable  things 
in  soft  materials  of  which  he  did  not  even  know 
the  names. 

She  did  not  answer  his  question  directly ;  but 


THE  MIDGE. 


223 


rose,  freeing  herself  with  a  motion  that  was 
almost  a  caress,  and  returned  to  her  seat. 

"  You  are  too  good  to  everybody,  Evert,"  she 
said,  giving  her  head  a  sad  little  shake :  "  you 
do  not  know  it ;  but  you  are  too  good.  Some 
times  you  make  me  wish  you  were  not  so 
good." 

The  Doctor  smiled.  "  I'm  not  so  good,  Midge," 
he  said.  "  You  may  find  me  considerable  of  a 
bother  yet.  But  I'm  glad  I've  been  able  to  be  of 
some  use  to  that  boy  Hathaway.  And  I  rather 
think  his  future's  settled — that  is,  in  a  business 
way.  I'd  like  to  see  him  safely  married,  though. 
He  needs  it" 

"  Why  do  you  think  he  needs  it  ?  "  asked  the 
Midge,  quietly. 

The  heap  of  glowing  coals  in  the  grate  fell 
with  a  little  crash  into  a  flickering  crater.  The 
Doctor  stopped  to  pile  up  the  fire  before  he 
replied. 

"  Everybody  needs  it,  my  dear.  When  it's  a 
good  thing  at  all,  it's  the  best  thing  in  the  world. 
I  should  like  to  have  that  boy  have  a  fireside — " 
he  bent  over  and  poked  vigorously  at  the  half- 
kindled  cannel — "a  fireside,  a  fireside — that's  the 
thing.  I  don't  mean  only  a  grate,  and  coal  and 
stuff — there's  a  woman  goes  with  every  real, 
genuine  fireside.  That's  what  he  wants — that's 
what — 'most  everybody  else  wants — a  woman. 
A  woman,  Midge.  A  man's  only  half  a  man  if 


224 


THE  MIDGE. 


one  half  of  him  ain't  a  woman.  That's  one  of 
the  truths  a  man's  got  to  learn ;  and  I've  noticed" 
— he  smiled  at  the  fire — "  that  Providence  gen 
erally  provides  him  with  a  teacher." 

He  sat,  bending  forward,  playing  with  the 
poker,  patting  the  lumps  of  cannel  till  they  gently 
cracked  into  clean  fissures  that  coaxed  the  wan 
dering  flames.  He  was  talking  as  though  he 
were  talking  to  himself.  The  Midge  rose  abrupt 
ly,  gathering  up  her  work,  and  moved  toward  the 
door  of  her  room. 

"  I'm  tired,  Evert,"  she  said,  in  the  hushed 
undertone  that  women  use  when  their  thoughts 
are  apart  from  their  speech.  "  I  think  I'll  go  to 
bed." 

For  a  moment  he  made  no  effort  to  detain 
her ;  then  he  stretched  out  his  hand  and  said : 

"Aren't  you  going  to  bid  me  good-night?  " 

She  turned  back  quickly — her  hand  wras  on 
the  handle  of  the  door — and  kissed  him  on  the 
forehead.  Then  she  withdrew,  with  a  pleasant 
rustling  of  garments.  He  sat  still,  smiling  at  the 
fire,  until  the  sudden  sharp  ring  of  the  door-bell 
below  fell  on  his  ear.  He  heard  it  sleepily,  sitting 
back  and  listening  with  a  pleased,  absent-minded 
smile — pleased  at  his  own  thoughts.  Vaguely 
he  heard  some  one  stumble  up  the  stairs ;  then 
there  was  a  knock  at  the  door,  and  he  rose  to 
take  a  crumpled  note  from  a  sleepy  messenger- 
boy. 


THE  MIDGE.  22$ 

The  note  was  this : 

"March  3ist. 
"  My  dear  Doctor : — 

"  I  have  got  the  appointment.  The  committee  accepted  me 
without  discussion.  And  now  I  have  something  to  say  to  you 
that  will  give  you  pain ;  but  I  cannot  help  it.  I  do  not  feel  that 
I  have  the  right  to  speak  to  her  without  your  permission ;  but  I 
want  to  come  to-morrow,  early,  to  ask  Lois  to  be  my  wife.  I 
know  what  this  must  be  to  you — but  will  you  forgive  me  if  I 
take  her  from  you?  Lknow  that  you  look  upon  her  as  a  daugh 
ter.  I  know  how  selfish  I  must  seem,  and,  believe  me,  I  know 
what  I  owe  to  you.  I  feel  sure  that  she  will  say  Yes — and  if  I 
could  feel  as  sure  that  you  would  give  us  both  your  blessing,  I 
should  be  happy. 

"  Gratefully  and  truly  yours, 

"PAUL  HATHAWAY." 
is 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

HE  heard  the  sleepy  messenger-boy  thump  his 
doubtful  way  down  the  stairs,  as  he  read  the 
last  lines  of  the  note. 

Of  course.  Why  had  he  not  known  it  before — 
why  had  he  not  seen  it  before  ?,  He  felt  as  if  he 
had  been  asleep  a  long  time,  getting  a  respite 
from  the  burden  of  some  awful  truth,  and  had 
suddenly  awakened  to  a  chill  dawning  of  inevita 
ble  consciousness. 

He  thought  of  it  with  a  horror-stricken  sense 
of  shame,  as  of  some  omitted  duty.  What  had  he 
done — what  had  he  been  about  to  do  ?  He  had 
meant  to  ask  this  woman  to  be  his  wife — this 
woman  who  loved  another  man.  It  came  to  him 
with  a  ghastly  cold  clearness  that  she  would  have 
struggled  with  herself,  would  have  fought  down 
her  love  for  duty's  sake,  and  would  have  married 
him,  loving  this  other  man,  to  be  miserable  all 
life  long. 

The  cold  draught  from  the  still  open  door  blew 

in  on  him.     He  was  dimly  conscious  of  it ;  but  it 

seemed  nothing  to  him  beside  the  deeper  chill 

that  had  penetrated  to  his  inmost  being,  para- 

226 


THE  MIDGE. 


227 


lyzing  his  soul.  In  a  blind,  mechanical  way  he 
rose  and  moved  across  the  room  and  shut  the 
door.  He  thought  that  he  staggered;  but  he 
was  not  sure.  His  consciousness  of  himself 
seemed  far  removed  from  the  flesh-and-blood 
automaton  that  got  up  from  its  seat  and  went  to 
shut  a  door  and  stop  a  draught. 

He  had  held  the  letter  in  his  hand  all  the  time. 
It  was  in  his  hand  when  he  sat  down  again. 
With  an  absolutely,  involuntary  motion,  he  raised 
it  to  the  level  of  his  eyes  two  or  three  times,  and 
each  time  his  eyes  wandered  away,  seeing  noth 
ing  save  some  most  commonplace  and  meaning 
less  bit  of  their  surroundings — a  corner  of  the 
mantelpiece,  the  bow  of  the  ribbon  that  tied  the 
window-curtains  back,  his  pipe,  lying  on  the 
table,  half  full  of  lifeless  gray  ashes. 

He  felt  this  an  unpardonable  weakness,  and 
pulled  himself  together,  with  scowling  brows. 
He  read  the  letter  half  through,  and  then  had  to 
read  it  over  again.  He  had  understood  the 
words,  as  each  one  had  come  under  his  eye ;  but 
they  had  been  only  words.  They  had  meant 
nothing  beyond  signs  and  sounds.  He  read 
them  now  with  a  stern  determination  to  drive 
their  sense  into  his  head. 

He  distinctly  felt,  as  he  began,  that  he  was 
doing  something  hopeless,  futile ;  a  mere  make 
shift  to  fill  up  the  time  until  he  could  command 
himself.  But  he  had  not  read  the  third  sentence 


228  THE  MIDGE. 

through  before  his  heart  sprung  up  in  him 
with  a  wild  intoxication  of  joy.  'What  was  it, 
after  all  ?  This  boy  wanted  to  marry  the  woman 
he  himself  loved.  Well,  what  of  that  ?  Had  he 
not  been  warned  of  it  ?  Was  it  not  to  be  ex 
pected  ?  Did  it  follow  that  she  loved  him  ?  What 
reason  had  he  to  suppose  that  any  such  absurd, 
wild  thing  was  possible  ?  He  passed  his  hand 
over  his  eyes,  like  a  man  who  tries  to  clear  away 
a  dream.  He  must  have  been  mad  to  think  of  it 
Faintly  and  feebly,  he  laughed  aloud  to  himself, 
and  sighed  in  weary  relief.  He  had  been  nervous ; 
that  was  it ;  he  had  dwelt  so  long  and  so  earnestly 
on  this  one  thought  that  he  had  grown  morbid 
and  excitable,  and  he  had  lost  his  self-control. 
It  was  an  impossibility,  an  absurdity,  and  he  must 
have  been  strangely  weak  to  consider  it  at  all. 

Then  he  reflected  that  he  would  have  to  con 
sider  it,  and  this  brought  a  certain  cheering 
strength  to  him.  To  have  something  to  reason 
out,  something  to  employ  his  faculties,  gave  him 
a  hold  on  himself.  He  got  up  again,  and  walked 
up  and  down  the  room,  and  tried  to  think  it  all 
over.  What  did  he  know  positively?  That 
Paul  Hathaway  was  in  love  with  the  Midge ; 
that  Hathaway  thought  the  Midge  loved  him. 
Did  she  love  Hathaway?  He  could  not  believe 
that  he  could  have  been  so  blind  as  not  to  have 
seen  it  if  she  did.  Yet,  he  remembered,  and  his 
heart  sank,  he  had  been  so  blind  as  not  to  see 


THE  MIDGE. 


229 


that  Hathaway  was  in  love.  Had  he  not  been 
blind  in  every  direction  ?  For  the  idea  had  been 
suggested  to  him,  weeks  before.  But  then  he 
remembered  how  that  idea  had  been  suggested, 
and  how  he  had  put  it  out  of  his  mind  entirely, 
as  an  unworthy  thought.  He  had  set  it  aside 
out  of  pure  loyalty  to  young  Hathaway.  He 
had  refused  even  to  think  that  this  boy,  whom 
he  had  made  his  friend,  could  dream  of  stealing 
away  from  him  the  woman  in  whom  his  life  was 
wrapped  up. 

And  now  he  had  it,  in  Hathaway's  own  hand, 
that  this  inconceivable  thing  was  a  positive  fact. 
He  grew  hot  with  sudden  anger.  What  right 
had  this  pink-and-white  boy  to  come  in  with  his 
boyish  love,  his  boyish  passion,  his  boyish,  arro 
gant  hope,  to  dare  to  think  of  taking  this  woman 
from  him  ?  And  suppose — suppose  she  loved 
the  boy  ?  Well,  again,  what  of  it  ?  Should  a 
boy-and-girl  fancy  such  as  that  weigh  against  a 
man's  love — his  own  love,  grown  from  the  small 
est  beginnings,  grown  naturally  into  a  great, 
consuming  passion,  something  that,  sooner  or 
later,  however  she  might  mistake  herself  now, 
she  must  answer  to  ? 

He  grew  hotter  and  hotter  as  he  walked  up 
and  down.  Anger  gave  him  a  strange  fluency 
of  thought.  He  saw  with  vivid  clearness  how 
he  had  loved  the  child  and  the  woman  with  a 
love  that  had  changed  not  in  nature,  but  only  in 


230 


THE  MIDGE. 


growth.  He  did  not  think  of  what  he  had  done 
for  her;  but  only  of  what  he  had  tried  to  be  to 
her — how  he  had  studied  her  tastes,  her  capa 
cities,  her  tendencies;  how  he  had  conscien 
tiously  tried  to  teach  her  the  best  that  he  knew, 
to  make  of  her  the  best  that  it  was  in  her  to  be. 

And  now  this  boy — this  Hathaway — came  in 
smug  and  smiling,  and  self-complacent,  with  his 
little  sixpenny,  sentimental  fancy — this  fellow 
who  a  year  or  two  before  had  been  swearing 
love  and  promising  marriage  to  the  common 
coquette  of  a  South  American  naval  station. 
Great  God!  but  he  would  put  an  end  to  this 
profanation — he,  an  honest  man,  with  but  one 
love  to  his  life.  Whatever  pain  it  cost  her,  for 
the  moment,  whatever  she  or  any  one  might  think 
of  it,  at  least  this  thing  should  not  be.  He  knew, 
to  an  absolute  certainty,  that  he  had  only  to  tell 
her  what  he  knew,  and  Paul  Hathaway  would  go 
out  of  her  life  forever.  He  knew  she  would 
never  forgive  such  an  outrage  against  love  and 
honor.  He  knew  what  she  wTas  and  what  he 
himself  had  taught  her,  and  that  she  could  never 
forgive  as  he — fool  that  he  was — had  forgiven. 

He  remembered  what  she  had  once  said : 
"  Yes, (I  do  belong  to  you,  Evert,  I  will  do  what 
ever  you  say,  now  and  always" 

He  strode  wildly  across  the  room  to  her  door, 
meaning  to  throw  it  open — it  was  never  locked — 
to  go  to  her  bedside,  as  he  had  gone  many  a 


THE  MIDGE. 


231 


time  before  to  watch  over  her  in  some  childish 
sickness,  and  there  to  tell  her  the  truth,  and  leave 
her  to  struggle  with  and  kill  whatever  love  she 
might  have  for  this  fellow.  But  he  stopped 
suddenly,  with  his  hand  on  the  door,  every  mus 
cle  in  him  cold  and  quivering,  and  he  knew  that 
he  could  not  go  into  that  room.  Until  that 
moment  he  had  not  known  how  he  loved.  He 
had  thought  of  his  love  as  a  simple  and  natural 
affection ;  the  growth  of  years ;  a  mere  develop 
ment  of  an  earlier  fatherly  tenderness.  He 
knew  now  that  it  was  the  love  of  a  man  who 
wants  a  woman  for  his  wife ;  and  he  knew  that 
never,  unless  this  woman  were  his  wife,  could  he 
cross  the  sill  of  her  chamber,  and  look  upon  her 
as  she  lay  asleep. 

He  turned  back  and  went  to  the  window,  and 
looked  out.  It  was  faintly  misty.  The  light  of 
the  morning  sun  was  somewhere  high  in  the 
heavens,  and  its  dull  refraction  lit  up  all  things 
with  an  even,  cold  light  that  had  no  life  in  it. 
He  saw  the  great  vacant  Square,  and  the  broad, 
red  brick  houses  opposite.  Their  marble  facings 
stared  out,  a  dull,  damp  white. 

If  the  body  of  your  dearest  friend  lay  in  your 
house,  there  would  be  times  when  it  was  nothing 
but  a  corpse  to  you — something  'lifeless  and  not 
human,  that  claims  a  mocking  identity  with  the 
man  you  loved ;  that  is  he,  and  is  not  he.  You 
want  to  get  it  away,  out  of  sight,  this  cold  gray 


232 


THE  MIDGE. 


thing,  that  must  always  come  between  you  and 
your  remembrance  of  him  you  knew  when  he 
lived  and  breathed  and  moved,  and  had  color 
in  his  cheeks  and  light  in  his  eyes.  A  feeling 
akin  to  this  took  hold  on  the  Doctor  as  he 
looked  out  of  the  window  into  this  dim  fore- 
dawn  that  was  not  so  much  night  as  a  dead  day. 


The  day  came,  misty,  veiled,  and  softly  bright. 
It  woke  up  the  flocks  of  swallows  in  the  great 
Square ;  it  put  touches  of  gold  on  the  budding 
branches  of  the  trees ;  it  lit  up  the  generous  red 
brick  houses  with  a  rosy  radiance  not  their  own. 
It  found  the  Doctor  still  looking  out  of  the  win 
dow,  with  his  forehead  resting  against  the  frame. 
He  was  weary,  for  it  aroused  him  from  a  sort  of 
stupor ;  and  in  this  stupor,  as  he  half  remem 
bered,  he  had  thought  over,  in  inconsecutive, 
irregular  moments  of  thought,  the  most  of  his 
life — had  seen  the  Midge  grow  up  by  his  side, 
through  childhood,  girlhood,  to  womanhood  and 
to  the  time  of  parting.  For,  with  a  sudden  com 
prehension  of  the  nature  of  his  love  for  her, 
there  had  come  a  quick,  instinctive  conviction 
that  she  never  had  loved  him  in  that  way ;  that 
she  never  could  love  him  in  that  way.  He  did 
not  know  how  he  knew  this ;  but  it  came  to  him 
as  a  fact,  which  he  accepted  as  one  accepts  the 
fact  that  death  has  come  into  the  house. 


THE  MIDGE. 


233 


There  were  certain  things  left  for  him  to  do  in 
this  world.  There  was  one  thing  most  promi 
nent  at  the  moment — to  go  into  his  own  room, 
and  lie  down,  and  sleep,  or  make  some  pretense 
of  sleeping,  until  such  time  as  morning  should 
begin  for  other  people.  It  was  one  of  the  things 
he  had  to  do,  and  he  did  it.  All  his  life  long  he 
had  done  the  things  he  had  to  do,  and  this  was 
one  of  the  last  things  that  could  greatly  vex  him 
on  this  side  of  the  grave. 


Two  hours  later  there  was  a  ring  at  the  door 
below  that  awoke  him ;  a  sound  of  feet  on.  the 
stairs,  and  a  knock  at  the  door  of  his  sitting- 
room.  He  heard  Elise  tell  the  visitor  to  wait 
for  Miss  Lodoiska,  and  heard  her  tramping 
heavily  around  to  the  side-door  of  the  Midge's 
room. 

He  arose  from  the  bed  on  which  he  was  lying, 
and  made  himself  presentable,  and  went  into  the 
sitting-room.  Paul  Hathaway  was  there,  flushed 
and  excited.  He  shook  hands  with  him,  and 
said  a  few  commonplace  words.  Then  he  heard 
a  step  in  the  next  room,  and  his  heart  leapt  up 
to  hear  it.  The  door  opened,  and  the  Midge 
came  out,  and  he  saw  her  eyes  meet  Paul  Hath 
away 's  with  that  wonderful  lightening  of  love 
which  cannot  be  mistaken. 


234 


THE  MIDGE. 


"  I  haven't  slept  well,  Midge,"  he  said :  "  I'm 
going  out  for  a  walk  before  breakfast." 

He  stopped  as  he  went  toward  the  door  to 
take  up  his  hat  and  coat  that  lay  upon  the 
sofa. 

"Hathaway,  my  boy — "  he  began  not  quite 
knowing  why  or  how  he  spoke.  The  Midge 
ran  to  kiss  him  a  quick,  impulsive  good-bye,  and 
then  turned  to  Hathaway,  and  the  Doctor  went 
out  to  take  his  walk. 


They  were  married  in  June,  when  Washing 
ton  Square  was  all  one  flush  of  green.  Hatha 
way  gave  up  the  voyage  around  the  world.  The 
Doctor  made  that  the  only  condition,  in  "giving 
his  consent.  And  he  himself  so  arranged  mat 
ters  that  compliance  with  the  condition  was  easy. 
It  was  a  quiet  wedding,  in  the  old  sitting-room. 
There  were  only  two  people  present,  beside  the 
Doctor — Parker  Prout  and  Professor  Mannheim 
— and  they  brought  their  wedding  gifts  with  them. 
Parker  Prout  had  one  of  his  own  pictures — a 
picture  on  which  he  had  worked  very  hard — 
and  Mannheim  brought  a  stack  of  precious 
music — he,  and  no  one  else,  knew  how  precious 
it  was  to  him. 

And  when  it  was  over,  and  they  had  gone 
away,  the  two  of  them,  to  a  certain  little  house 
up-town,  which  the  Doctor  had  inspected  long 


THE  MIDGE. 


235 


ago,  when  he  himself  thought  of  moving  from 
the  rooms  in  Washington  Place,  he  went  up 
stairs  and  looked  at  the  empty  kitchen — he  had 
sent  Elise  out  to  take  a  half  day's  holiday. 

Then  he  went  into  the  big  pantry.  In  the 
corner,  on  the  shelf,  still  lay  the  crock  in  which 
the  Midge  had  hidden  her  head,  heavy  with 
childish  grief,  years  before.  The  old  stool  stood 
before  it.  He  sat  down  on  it,  and  rested  his  hot 
forehead  on  the  cool  rim  of  the  jar. 

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"A  particularly  sparkling  story,  the  subject  being  the  young  heiress  of 
a  Pacific  silver-mine,  thrown  amid  the  very  proper  petty  aristocracy  of  an 
English  rural  town." — Springfield  Republican. 

THROUGH  ONE  ADMINISTRATION. 

One  volume,  12mo,  extra  cloth,  -  $1.50 

"The  pathetic  fervor  which  Mrs.  Burnett  showed  so  fully  in  'That 
Lass  o'  Lowrie's'  is  exhibited  in  many  a  touching  scene  in  her  new  story, 
which  is  only  to  be  found  fault  with  because  it  is  too  touching." — London 
Athentzum, 

LOUISIANA. 

One  volume,  12mo,  extra  cloth,  $1.25 

"  We  commend  this  1-ook  as  the  product  of  a  skillful,  talented,  well- 
trained  pen.  Mrs.  Burnett's  admirers  are  already  numbered  by  the  thousand, 
and  every  new  work  like  this  one  can  only  add  to  their  number." — Chicago 
Tribune. 

HA  WORTH'S 

One  volume,  12mo,  extra  cloth,  -  $1.25 

"  It  is  but  faint  praise  to  speak  of  'Haworth's'  as  merely  a  good  novel. 
It  is  one  of  the  few  great  novels." — Hartford  Courant. 

SURLY  TIM, 

AND     OTHER     STORIES. 
One  volume,  12mo,  extra  cloth,  •  $1.25 

"Each  of  these  narratives  have  a  distinct  spirit,  and  can  be  profitably 
read  by  all  classes  of  people.  They  are  told  not  only  with  true  art  but  with 
deep  pathos." — Boston  Post. 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  PUBLISHERS, 

&  745  'Broad-way,  New  York. 


GUERNDALE 

By  J.  S.,  of  Dale. 


One  vol.,  12mo,  cloth,  $1.25.    Paper,  5O  Cents. 


Guerndale  is  a  distinctly  modern  novel,  and  its 
claim  to  consideration  lies  in  its  revelation  of  modern 
tendencies.  It  is  as  far  removed  on  the  one  hand  from 
the  current  type  of  over-wrottght  psychological  stndy^ 
as  on  the  other  from  the  older  conventional  romance. 
Its  original  and  striking  quality  docs  not  depend  on 
eccentricity ',  but  on  the  fresh  force  in  it  and  the  direct 
ness  of  its  dealings  with  the  life  of  to-day. 

"  '  Guerndale'  will  at  once  take  rank  as  one  of  the  cleverest  and  best 
/ritten  works  of  fiction  of  the  year." — Chicago  Tribune. 


"It  has  thought,  vigor  and  passion,  and  has  not  a  drowsy  page  between 
the  covers."— A7.    Y.  Home  Journal. 


"Almost  every  page  shows  traces  of  thought  and  fancy,  often  even  of 
grace." — Boston  Courier. 

"  P.  shows  greater  power  and  gives  greater  promise  than  any  American 
romance  of  the  year  by  an  unknown  writer." — N.  Y.  World. 

"After  endless  novels  of  culture,  here  is  a  novel  of  power;  after  a  flood 
of  social  analysis  and  portraiture,  here  is  a  story  of  genuine  passion  and 
of  very  considerable  insight  of  the  deeper  sort." — Christian  Union. 

'The  plot  of  the  story,  or  rather  of  the  romance,  for  no  other  name 
properly  describes  it,  is  full  of  delicacy  and  beauty.  .  .  The  author 
has  given  us  a  story  such  as  we  have  not  had  in  this  country  since  tha 
time  of  Hawthorne." — Boston  Advertiser. 


sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent,  post-paid,  upon  receipt  of  price,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS,  PUBLISHERS, 
743  AND  745  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK, 


BEAUTIFUL 


EDITION. 


By  FRANK  R.  STOCKTON. 

ILLTJSTRA.TED     BY      A.     B.     FROST. 


One  vol.,  12mo, 


$2.OO. 


The  new  Rudder  Grange  has  not  been  illustrated  in  a  conventional 
•way.  Mr.  Frost  has  given  us  a  series  of  interpretations  of  Mr. 
Stockton's  fancies,  which  will  delight  every  appreciative  reader, — 
sketches  scattered  through  the  text ;  larger  pictures  of 


f 

the  many  great  and  memorable  events,  and  everywhere  quaint  orna 
ments.     It  is,  on  the  whole,  one  of  the  best 
existing  specimens  of  the  complete  supple 
menting    of  one    another   by  author  and 
artist.      The  book  is  luxurious  in  the  best     "t^ 
sense  of  the  word,  admirable  in  typography, 
convenient  in  size,  and  bound  in  a  capital  cover  of  Mr.  Frost's  design. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent,  post-paid,  by  the  publishers, 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS, 

743  £r  245  Broadway,  New-York. 


WEIRD  TALES. 

BY  E.  T.  W.  HOFFMANN. 

A.  NEW  TRANSLATION  FROM  THE  GERMAN  (WITH  A  BIO 
GRAPHICAL  MEMOIR)  BY  J.  T.  BEALBY,  B.A. 

Two  volumes,  12mo,  with  portrait,  $3.0O. 

"The  Weird  Tales  of  E.  T.  W.  Hoffmann  have  long  held  a 
unique  place  in  German  literature.  Their  translation  into 
English  and  publication  in  an  American  edition  will  introduce 
to  American  readers  one  of  the  most  fantastic  and  original 
geniuses  of  modern  times;  a  man  of  more  gifts  than  Poe, 
and  with  the  same  mastery  of  the  weird  and  supernatural 
which  gave  Poe's  works  their  unfailing  fascination.  Hoff 
mann  knew  how  to  construct  a  ghost  story  quite  as  skilfully 
as  Poe,  and  with  a  good-  deal  more  sense  of  reality.  All 
those  who  are  in  search  of  a  genuine  literary  sensation,  or 
who  care  for  the  marvellous  and  supernatural,  will  find  these 
two  volumes  fascinating  reading." — Christian  Union. 


THE  DIAMOND  LENS,  AND  OTHER  STORIES. 

BY  FITZ-JAMES  O'BRIEN. 

COLLECTED  AND  EDITED  WITH  A  SKETCH  OF  THE  AUTHOR 

BY  WILLIAM  WINTER. 
One  vol.  22mo,  clotli,  $1.OO  ;  paper,  5O  cents. 

In  the  region  of  the  fantastic  and  bizarre,  O'Brien  has,  except  Poe, 
no  superior.  This  collection  of  tales  selected  by  Mr.  Winter 
contains  the  best  and  most  striking  of  his  stories. 


***  These  books  are  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  -will  be  sent,  post 
free,  on  receipt  of  price,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS, 

743-745  Broadway,  New  York. 


"  Mr.  Stockton  has  'written  a  book  which  you  can't  discuss  with 
out  laughing;  and  that  is  proof  enough  of  its  quality." 

— N.  Y.  TRIBUNE. 

THE  LATE  MRS.  NULL. 

By  FRANK  R.  STOCKTON. 


One    Volume.      12mo.      Cloth.      $1.50. 


"THE  LATE  MRS.  NULL"  is  one  of  those  fortunate  books  that 
goes  beyond  all  expectation.  Even  those  readers  whose  hopes 
have  been  raised  the  highest  have  before  them — especially  in  the 
fact  that  they  receive  the  story  complete  and  at  once,  without 
intermediate  serial  publication — such  an  enjoyment  as  they  hard- 
]y  foresee. 

It  is  enough  to  say  of  the  scene  that  it  is  chiefly  in  Virginia, 
to  show  the  possibilities  of  local  character-drawing  open  to  Mr. 
Stockton  in  addition  to  his  other  types ;  and  to  say  that  every 
character  is  full  of  the  most  ingenious  and  delicious  originality 
is  altogether  needless.  In  an  increasing  scale,  the  situations  are 
still  more  complicated,  ingenious,  and  enjoyable  than  the  charac 
ters  ;  and  finally,  the  plot  is  absolutely  baffling  in  its  clever  in 
tricacy  yet  apparent  simplicity — a  true  device  of  Mr.  Stockton's 
tireless  fancy.  

"We  congratulate  the  novel  reader  upon  the  feast  there  is  in  'The  Late  Mrs. 
Null.'  "—Hartford  Post. 

"We  can  assure  prospective  readers  that  their  only  regret  after  finishing  the  book 
will  be  that  never  again  can  they  hope  for^the  pleasure  of  reading  it  again  for  the 
first  time." — The  Critic. 

"  Original,  bright,  and  full  of  the  author's  delicate  humor." — New  York  Journal 
of  Commerce. 

"  '  The  Late  Mrs.  Null'  is  delicious." — Boston  Journal. 


For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent,  post-paid,  by  the  publishers, 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

£r  745  Broadway,  New-York. 


Date  Due 


PRINTED    IN    U.S.A. 


CAT.   NO    24    161 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILIT 


A     000  547  468     9 


